I used to dread teaching conics but introducing these fun conic sections activities into my math classroom has made all of the difference. Read on to find hands-on and engaging ways to teach conic sections to your students. My first experience teaching conic sections was during my first year of teaching. I was teaching Algebra …
Conic Sections Activities
I took the conic sections that my students made during our folding conics project and had students turn them into a Conics Patty Paper Poster Project. At least, this was what I planned to do. What I didn’t plan on was my toddler getting sick which caused me to miss an entire week of school …
I decided to use this folding conic sections project to kick off our conics unit in Pre-Calculus. Over the last few years, I have learned how to create parabolas, ellipses, and hyperbolas using paper folding. I decided that if I could figure out a way to create a circle using paper folding that I would …
I love teaching conic sections, so I was super-excited to discover a set of instructions online for building a cone to help students visualize the four different types of conic sections. This made the perfect addition to our last unit of the year in Pre-Calculus – conics! Conics used to be a topic I taught …
Back in February, I learned how to use paper folding to create an ellipse. Since then, I’ve wanted to try my hand at paper folding a hyperbola as well. It’s taken a few months, but I finally did it! Previously, I have bogged about paper folding both parabolas and ellipses. I learned about folding a …
Today I learned how to use paper folding to create an ellipse. Years ago, I had my students use paper folding to create wax paper parabolas. Oklahoma ended up changing their Algebra 2 standards, so I haven’t thought much about the activity in quite a while. Now that I’m teaching Pre-Calculus, I will have to …
I want to share a conic sections foldable I created with you today. If you’ve been reading my blog lately, you probably can tell that I’m a conic section convert. I’m a conic section hater turned a conic section lover. Confession time. Before this school year, I didn’t really know why they were called conic …
Last Tuesday was my first time to see my students since the previous Thursday thanks to the stomach bug, President’s Day, and the weekend. My Algebra 2 students were lamenting the fact that we were stuck inside at school on a beautiful day. It’s slowly started warming up in Oklahoma, and I couldn’t be more …
Today I’m sharing our conic sections foldables and graphic organizers that we glued in our interactive notebooks in Algebra 2. I’m so sad to be finished with conics. I just love them that much. Conic cards are a huge reason why I like this unit so much. My students, on the other hand, are quite …
The main change I’ve made to my Algebra 2 conic sections unit this year is to introduce a classifying conic sections flow chart that I got from Rebecka Peterson. It’s crazy to think about how much things can change over the course of a year. Last year, I was dreading teaching conic sections to my …
I’m excited to introduce you to wax paper parabolas! This year, my Algebra 2 interactive notebooks are easily a hundred times better than last year’s Algebra 2 notebooks! I’m serious. Last year, I did a pretty good job with Algebra 1. And, Algebra 2 sort of got the short end of the stick. …
If you teach conic sections as part of Algebra 2 or Pre-Calculus, I am about to share a life-changing teaching method for you called Conic Cards. Conic Cards are the creation of Cindy Johnson, a National Board Certified Teacher in Oklahoma. She blogs at Conic Card Lady. Cindy originally shared her Conic Cards at a …