Monday, March 10, 2008

Heads or Tails: Curve-Stitching The Green

St. Patrick's Day Mathematics Lesson
Suggested to me by Multicultural Mathematics: Teaching Mathematics from a Global Perspective by David Nelson, George Gheverghese Joseph and Julian Williams

OBJECTIVES:
Develop number sense
Introduce number theory
Practice sums of ten

MATERIALS:
Worksheets
History of the Shamrock
pencils
markers
video about the history of St. Patrick's Day
Richard Phillips: Numbers: Facts, Figures and Fiction
D. G. Wells: The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers

LESSON:
Read History of the Shamrock
Watch "The Story of St. Patrick's Day" video
Curve-stitch a shamrock (St. Patrick's Day worksheet).
Investigate the number 3 with information from Phillips and Wells.

EXTENSION:
What other shapes might you get by using other sums?

LINKS:
Search The Math Forum and enter "curve stitching" in the text field.
Google for more info about: Lissajous Figures, String Art Lissajous. JAVA sites.

To see more Heads or Tails participants, visit Skittles
or click .
Thank you so much for visiting.
_/\_/\_

18 Comments:

Skittles said...

That's really cool! I didn't even realize it had made the shamrock shape until I started reading!

Do you remember getting string-art kits? Are you old enough to remember those? :)

Sue said...

That is too cool!!! My Dad used to say Math was the universal language :)

Happy H.O.T day :)

mharia said...

wow ... interesting! am not much into math, but hubby is ... he'd try to get into this right away if he'd get his way! :)

Mike said...

That's pretty interesting. When I first saw it though it reminded me of a design that was created using one of those old "spirograph" things. I used to have one when I was a kid and had fun drawing lots of different designs with it. Good post for the meme.

Tammy said...

I am such an idiot....I saw the picture and thought okay green lines. It took me a minute looking at it to see the shape. Blond moment I guess hehe!

Drew said...

There appears to be a lot of math involved. I see a graph and numbers.

My kind fears math. And math-related activities.

THIS BLOG IS WITCHCRAFT! IT IS IN CONGRESS WITH THE DEVIL!!!

j/k have a great tuesday

Jen said...

This is really cool! I love all the different takes people come up with! It's awesome!

byrningbunny said...

How cool. Is this something that always interests you, or is it a St. Paddy's Day treat?

Hootin' Anni said...

Wow!!! Quite cool.

My HoT 'green' is shared. I do hope you can drop by, if you haven't already. Be prepared to sing along with Kermit the Frog tho!! :::smiles:::

Marcia said...

Too cool! I thought of string art at first, too, but this is so much more. I've bookmarked this to follow some of the links and read more. Thanks, Andrée.

jvdhj said...

Incredibly interesting and cool! :) What a great way to promote math! :)

Linda said...

This is so cool, amazing...wow!

Jean @ Penny Lane said...

What a great take on the green theme! I am going to show my children your post.

Misty Dawn said...

I guess I should be proud of myself because I saw the shamrock shape right away ;-) What a very unique and fun post!

tumblewords said...

Wow! That's pretty impressive - Nifty post!

byrningbunny said...

Hi. Tried to post a comment last night, but my computer had a meltdown!

I love this post. I was always math and science phobic as a kid, but I've realized recently that it was silly. I may never be good at math, but it sure it intriguing, isn't it?

Happy St. Paddy's Day

thrivingat30 said...

What a cool idea! I used to teach math, so this is right up my alley! Have a great week!

www.mamapj.com

peppylady said...

Maybe some day I'll get brave and try one of your math problem.
I never consider my self a math wiz but I've had people tell me that I fairly good at it.