Quesadilla - Part 1

My son and I look forward to Saturday mornings because Dad typically makes breakfast. Let me rephrase that, I really look forward to Saturday mornings because I get to make breakfast for the olive-gobbler and myself. It's the highlight of my whole weekend sometimes. I usually go with one of my two staples, pancakes or an egg and cheese quesadilla. Today, we went with the egg and cheese quesadilla. It's easy to make and we enjoy it together. Sometimes we throw in some bacon (the most delicious thing on earth). We also love to dip our quesadilla in Chik-Fil-A sauce.

Since he's only two-and-a-half, he can't man up to an entire quesadilla yet. Likewise, I should probably watch my cholesterol and avoid routinely eating 3 eggs and cheese every Saturday. It's a delicious compromise. That said, as he gets older he eats more and in turn my cholesterol intake is slightly less, I think.

I came up with a 3 Act idea for our quesadilla breakfasts. You'll notice I don't use halves, fourths, and other math related vocabulary on purpose. It gives you a chance to use that vocabulary with your students. Text included below.

Narrative:
"On the weekends, my son and I look forward to making an egg and cheese quesadilla for breakfast. We scramble the eggs, add the cheese, grill up the tortillas, and when the quesadilla is ready, I cut it into sections so we can share. When he was two years old, he’d only eat one of the sections. Now that he’s a little bit older, he’ll eat more than one, but won’t entirely eat two.  So I need to rethink this."

Quesadilla - Part 2
I'm working on another idea related to this whole circle, fraction idea. Stay tuned.

*Fawn, you're temporarily sworn to secrecy while I line things up.

Quesadilla,
405

P.S. How many times did I use the word "whole"?

Small, medium, or large

My wife, son and I went on a walk this morning. Destination: Bruegger's Bagels. There's a park between our house and the bagels. We frequently use this park since it has a play structure, monkey bars, slides, and swings (one of our favorites). Our two-and-a-half year old son (the olive-gobbler) loves to request that Dad (me) use the swing adjacent the swing he's on. Still a kid at heart, I frequently will jump off the swing in midair and my son has come to expect it. Of course, he requests, "Dad'll do a big big jump!" There were other kids around and I didn't want to be a horrible example and/or jump off and hurt one of them. As I explained this to him, he responds, "Dad'll do a medium jump."

I jump off the swing without hurting anyone, myself included. I turn to my wife and say, "I'm going to test something out when we get bagels." We walk over to the bagel establishment, place our order, and I grab a couple of straws. Enter this picture:

I took the straw wrapper and ripped it into three different sizes and ask him to identify the large one. He puts his finger on the piece on the right. I then ask him, "Which one is the medium one?" He places his finger on the piece in the middle. Lastly, I ask, "Which one is the small one?" and he places his finger on the left. Let's be clear here. I am not claiming my son is a genius or that my next magic trick is that he knows his multiplication facts. I was simply assessing if he really understood the difference between small, medium, and large. He does. I don't have another two-and-a-half year old kid to compare him to so I'm not sure if this is fair. What I do know is that he's making a one-to-one association and comparing sizes. I find this fascinating. As a family, we've been using the Your Baby Can Read series and have found it wonderful. I highly recommend it. The following is in one of his books.

Find the biggest comb.

This series has many wonderful ways of communicating language with children. My wife, an elementary teacher, would probably do a better job writing this post as she would be able to explain it all better than me. Knowing that he has a pretty good understanding comparing, let's see if he can order them if I mix them up a little.

Me: Okay, let's order them from least to greatest.
He looks at me blankly as he chews on his bagel. I didn't expect him to understand what I had just said. That's okay. I'm still going to use this language. I follow it up with this.
Me: Let's put them in order starting with the smallest.
Son: Hmph.
Me: Where is the small piece?
He points to the small piece.
Me: Okay, let's put that first (as I place it on is left). Where is the medium?
He points to the medium size piece.
Me: Let's put that next to the small piece.
Son: Hmph.
Me: Here, let's move it next to the small piece. What piece is left?
Son: The large! (saying it like he's just won the lottery).
Again, I'm not claiming my son is the next Einstein. I need to keep him honest and humble at the same time so here's how I proceed.  I take the largest straw wrapper and rip off a tiny piece so that it's smaller than what we previously agreed was the "small one". I temporarily hide the piece previously known as the "large one".
Me: Now which piece is the small?
He points to the new tiny piece.
Me: and the medium?
Son: This one (pointing to the piece formally known as 'small')
Me: and the large?
Son: This one (pointing to the piece formally known as 'medium')
I hope you're following me. If not, here's a picture to compare to the first one.

Previous small, medium, & large

New small, medium, & large

Let's see what this kid is made of. I reveal the piece I ripped the tiny piece from, formally known as "large one."
Me: What size is this?
Son: Hmph.
Me: This is the small, medium, and large (as I point at the new small, medium, and large) so what size is this piece (pointing at the piece formally known as "large")?
Son: Hmph.
I give him a few seconds to contemplate, mull it over, and possibly share his own name. Nope, nothing. He's perplexed. He's staring at it. He wants to call it something. He wants to have a name for it and compare it to the other three, but is looking for some direction here. I can see he's just about to take another bite of his bagel and be done with his dad's straw wrapper experiment. I jump in and say, "It's EXTRA large!" If this conversation was happening six months from now, I'd ask if the newly named piece would be "extra large" or stay known as "large." Likewise, would the tiny piece now known as "small" be correct or be known as the "extra small" piece? You decide.

Do you have these conversations with your students? If I was having it with my students, I'd hold out longer and force them to come up with a way to classify all four pieces using their own language. The teacher in me does not take a vacation nor do I take time off during the weekends. I love these conversations and I am now seeing them naturally occurring with my son. I cherish these opportunities and love seeing how his brain is working.

Lastly, a wonderful 3 Act opportunity made an appearance at the end of our bagel extravaganza today. I'll be posting it on Dan Meyer's 101qs.com so let me know the first question that comes to mind right here. It might be winter, but math is not in hibernation. It's still out there in the wild. Be ready to capture it any chance you get.

Small, medium, or large,
849

Bouncy Balls

Today was a good day. Yesterday wasn't and I'll leave it at that (strictly speaking of school). One of those days where I couldn't find a wall fast enough in order to bang my head against it not once, but multiple times. It's a great thing that I get to end my days with my wife and son. My students are having a blast finding Felipe, our classroom Elf on the Shelf, each day. With a waterfall schedule, my last class of the day gets to hide him for the next day. It's a fun little activity for the kids to burn some energy off until the holidays. We did our seasonal estimate today and I started my Algebra classes with this video:

Yes, this video is cruel. Not necessarily perplexing, but enough to hopefully generate some curiosity? So, which ball will bounce higher? Give me a thumbs up if you think the 2012 Super Ball will bounce higher. Give me a thumbs down if you think the 1976 Super Ball will bounce higher. Give me a thumbs middle if you think they will bounce the same. In all three classes, there wasn't a strong majority, but if I had to estimate I think most students voted that 2012 will bounce higher. And... I don't tell them, show them, or even hint to them. I know, cruel. Enter this picture:

This lesson snuck up on me as I was collecting balls. I forgot to get the following balls: ping pong ball, racquetball, tennis ball, and one of those pink spongy balls. Okay, let's get this out of our system; middle schoolers and the word, "balls." So here we go, "balls, balls, balls, balls, balls, balls, balls, balls."

"Now, look at the balls and quietly, to yourself, make a guess. Guess which ball will be the best. In other words, which will bounce the highest? Now, guess which will be the worst? Don't say anything. Write that in the top corner of the handout you are about to receive. Don't share it with anyone." Students were looking at the screen, scoping out the different sizes, shapes, and textures of each ball. I saw some students writing the golf ball as the worst and the lacrosse ball as the best. Some were putting the Super Balls as the best. "Now, share your guesses with your group. Does anyone want more information about these balls besides just a picture." Trust me, it was very difficult not to work "balls" into the conversation as much as possible. Seriously, it can be fun to see them squirm, grin or laugh at times like these. I refrained from making comments like, "Don't worry guys, you'll get your hands on these balls soon enough." or "We're not playing with the balls people. Simply dropping them and seeing how high they bounce." C'mon people, "Make sure you handle the balls with care." You get the point.

I'm a slow learner. You've probably heard me say this before. This might be one of the best parts of my day. When introducing projects this year, I've made the mistake of displaying the handout on the screen first, having students read parts out loud, and throw in some pointers before they get their supplies. You can predict what happens next. Students get their supplies and start exploring the project in the wrong way or ask me questions to parts I already reviewed. What's the typical response? "Read the handout again." or "I already went over that. Ask a classmate." And you know with each student that you see not following directions or that comes up to you and asks what to do next simply gets more irritating with every time. For example, when we stole from Fawn Nguyen's Barbie Bungee, I'd see students simply letting Barbie hang freely from the top of their meter stick and measure that distance with every rubber band they added. They weren't dropping Barbie and measuring the lowest point she extended to. So it dawned on me, once again because I'm slow. "Everybody, you are to read the entire handout with your group first. When you've done that, come up to me and explain what you are doing. If you accurately tell me in your own words the objective and directions of the project, you may grab a ball and start collecting data. If you can't, I send you back to read it again." Money! It worked like a charm. Students knew what they were doing. They knew the correct steps. They knew what increments and how many drops per ball. It was great. I still have to do the Barbie Bungee project with my Algebra Honors class and will see how well they do with reading the directions.

Here's what students did today. Students were to use one ball at a time to drop the ball from 10 cm to 1 meter using 10 cm increments and at least three drops from each increment. Once they completed that, they were to exchange their ball for another ball and do this for a total of three balls. Hint: no one was allowed to use the 1976 Super Ball until they collected data for two balls first. Plus, I don't let the 1976 Super Ball out of my site. I've had that since I was a kid and do you know what those guys go for on eBay? They kept track of the rebound heights and were to make observations. Were there any constant changes? If not, was there a close average change? Our goal is to predict the rebound height of a drop from 3 meters and from our balcony of 5.7 meters.

At least I didn't play this video to intro the lesson.

Balls,
1026