Comments on: Snowflake Math

By: Substitutes, FTW!: Three Math Activities for the Christmas Season

Substitutes, FTW!: Three Math Activities for the Christmas Season — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 19:22:17 +0000

[…] acute is students' spatial intelligence? Test it out with this Snowflake Math Activity, which challenges them to anticipate which design will result from cuts on piece of paper. […]

By: Reflections and Transformations » Snowflakes: Transformations and Area

Reflections and Transformations » Snowflakes: Transformations and Area — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:35:29 +0000

[…] think dy/dan’s Snowflake Math is a wonderful activity for the Transformations unit. And Mimi’s scaffolding of this activity […]

By: Jason Dyer

Jason Dyer — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 23:54:54 +0000

“This weekend” turned out to be a month due to some bizarre technical difficulties and then my forgetting. Sorry! Here’s to hoping someone else takes up the gauntlet.

By: Snowflake Math Redux « The Number Warrior

Snowflake Math Redux « The Number Warrior — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 23:34:57 +0000

[…] — Jason Dyer @ 4:34 pm So, I “borrowed” a lesson plan from Dan Meyer here and modified it. It still isn’t perfect, but I figured I’d share. Go read his version […]

By: Some good math blogs | Math Discussions

Some good math blogs | Math Discussions — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:14:35 +0000

[…] Snowflake math – this is a neat lesson plan. Makes kids thing spatially. […]

By: Jason Dyer

Jason Dyer — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 21:41:57 +0000

I have the blog now (check link in my name), and I will post all about my snowflake lesson this weekend.

I invited my students over, so feel free to say hi.

By: Jason Dyer

Jason Dyer — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:28:54 +0000

I ran this yesterday. I made a slight tweak to the worksheet that made the assignment easier, and I ended up undershooting on the difficulty. I am working up a webspace and maybe even a new blog to post this stuff.

By: dan

dan — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 19:59:42 +0000

How much thought about a student audience goes into your writing?

Zero. The long rants about misbehaving, ungrateful kids has never been my territory, otherwise this revelation would’ve shaken me a little more.

By: Adelyn

Adelyn — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:57:54 +0000

I agree that the narrative provides not only the opportunity to replicate the project better, but also the opportunity to discuss what could be done to improve it (since you asked).

One thing that I was left wondering from your writing is how did they do with the first part? The predicting?

The big jump to me is giving them the end product with no paper…how about giving them the created snowflake, paper, and the time to try to make one like it as your second step. That would allow the opportunity to trial and error and process (concretely) what is happening. It would help the kids who struggled with the first task and deepen the understanding of all.

Students who get it fast could be given more complicated ones to try. Lots of different stuff going on at this point. Then pull them all back and discuss what they have noticed. How do you make a certain portion? What happens when you make a cut, etc. Writing is good…don’t do enough of it myself…but the discussing lets them all process together. THEN give the worksheet. As you have carefully crafted the examples on the worksheet it could reinforce and extend what kids have done.

My thoughts anyway…

I should probably stop here, but two more thoughts are in my head. 1) I think the number of responses to this post is correlated to the request for improvement combined with transparency of practice. I would love to see more blogs with this tone. (Enough so that I want to teach kids again NOW to try it.) and 2) Interesting (but not really surprising) that your students read you blog. How much thought about a student audience goes into your writing?

By: Jason Dyer

Jason Dyer — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:04:34 +0000

I am going to attempt this with my students after winter break. (Transformations and symmetry will be our first topic.) I know I’m going to start with just one fold (as Sarah is suggesting) and not go past two for asking the end result. (At least for the required part of the assignment — I have a couple students I can ramp up the difficulty on.) I’ll give the instructions for a full fledged “pretty” snowflake as a grand finale.

I do believe orientation (as Ben Chun suggests) might be an issue, for when I first tried it myself I was temporarily confused as to which corner went where. (You have the “folded” effect but it isn’t enough.)

I’ll let you know how it goes. Thanks for posting your lesson plan!