Making My Mark In The World

I have taught high school geometry for many years now. But as a result of my MTBoS explorations and work with my colleagues in the NYS Master Teacher Program, I have become more aware and fascinated by shapes and their structures. I have also tried to increase student awareness of the beauty and powerful properties of the myriad of shapes that we study and don't study. It is still early in the school year, and my students' understanding and sense of shapes is still developing. So at the end of a recent quiz, I asked the students: "What is your favorite shape? Why?" Here are their unedited responses. Enjoy!  I will try to remember to ask them the same question at the end of the year, after working with a variety of shapes and their properties. Thanks for reading!

I know... sounds exciting right? Please bear with me... I was inspired today! As a geometry teacher, I am always looking for ways to visualize and demonstrate geometric concepts. Often times, I utilize tools like GeoGebra or Desmos. But frequently, geometry can utilize simple resources. This morning, I came across a tweet from Halcyon Foster: I really like how this utilizes simple materials that most geometry teachers have - paper, ruler, scissors, and dice. It looks like the idea is to roll the dice, then take a strip of paper and measure and divide it into lengths (in this case 2cm, 5cm & 6cm). Then fold the strip to try to make a triangle. It's simple and effective, and serves as a great way to investigate the triangle inequality theorem. It inspired me to think of a way to "kick it up a notch". So I turned to one of my favorite geometry tools - bendy drinking straws! Here is what I put together: Supplies: Bendy straws Scissors Ruler Sharpie