In my last post, I shared the Square Pi Puzzle and mentioned that I was updating some older puzzles that have been long-time favorites of my students. Today, I want to share another updated puzzle, the 1-4-5 Square Challenge. I originally shared this puzzle on my blog in May 2015 which seems like an eternity …
Geometry Activities
This equilateral triangle puzzle comes from Puzzle Box, Volume 1 from Dover Publications. This is the first book in a series of three puzzle books that are edited by the Peter and Serhiy Grabarchuk. This specific puzzle is by Richard Candy. Each volume has 300 puzzles, and I have found over a hundred puzzles between …
I’m very excited about the Square the Shapes Puzzle (this week’s puzzle table selection) because it’s got some hidden mathematics involved in solving it that aren’t obvious at first glance. I find that my students are less likely to tackle the puzzle on the puzzle table when the math connection is blatantly obvious. This week’s …
Teaching geometry? Check out this review of Geometiles, an awesome new math manipulative with endless possibilities. The kind people at Geometiles recently contacted me to ask if I would be willing to write a review in exchange for a free set. I love using manipulatives in the math classroom, so I jumped at the chance …
These Angle Maze Puzzles from Naoki Inaba challenge students to find a path through a maze by being able to recognize common angle measurements. Draw a path through the maze from S to G. Each time you pass through a numbered circle, the path must form that angle in degrees. This summer, I blogged about …
Zukei puzzles are the brilliant creation of Naoki Inaba. Inaba has posted these puzzles for free on his website, but it can be a bit hard to navigate since everything is written in Japanese. You may have heard of Inaba from his popular area maze puzzles. Instructions for Solving Zukei Puzzles The instructions for the …
I love this clinometer activity for giving my trigonometry students extra practice finding missing angles and sides of right triangles. Plus, it answers the question of “When will we ever use this?” I printed a clinometer template off of VirtualMaths.org for them to use. I mistakenly assumed that they would be able to put together …
I created this finding missing angles of right triangles practice book for my trigonometry students to glue in their interactive notebooks. My students were a bit miffed that they had to just write these equations. They thought I should have given them a foldable for these! I did make them a practice book, though. These …
We created this parts of a right triangle interactive notebook page to start off our unit on right triangle trigonometry. Each student had to cut a right triangle out of colored paper and glue it into their notebooks. We labeled one of the non-90 degree angles as theta. Then, we discussed how to identify the …
To give my students a bit more practice with word problems, I typed up these Romeo and Juliet themed pythagorean theorem problems. These are slightly modified from this Weebly site. Free Download of Romeo and Juliet Pythagorean Theorem Questions
I decided my students needed a Pythagorean Triples reference page in their notebooks to go along with the posters I have hanging in my classroom. Here is the page. You will notice that 6, 8, 10 is not included on the list because it is related to 3, 4, 5. Free Download of Pythagorean …
I gave this missing angles task to my Trigonometry students as part of our beginning of year algebra and geometry review. I had students find the missing angles in this diagram that I found online. Here’s a link the original source. Free Download of Missing Angles Task
I created this interactive notebook page to help illustrate the sum of angles in a triangle. Instead of just telling my students that the sum of the angles in a triangle is always 180 degrees (something I hope they remember from geometry!), I decided to have them cut out a triangle and illustrate it themselves. …
I created this practice book to give my trigonometry students some much needed review of finding the distance between any two points on the coordinate plane. I’m a rebel and chose not to teach the distance formula since it’s way easier to just use the Pythagorean Theorem instead. Instructions for Finding the Distance Between Any …
I used this One Big Square Task with my trigonometry students to review 45-45-90 special right triangles. I found this task in the Open Curriculum Task Database. I loved listening to the conversations my students had as they struggled through this problem. And, I mean “struggle” in the best possible way! Free Download of One …
I found this dragon puzzle to practice special right triangles online, and I fell in love with it. Each of the triangles is a special right triangle. I did a bit of research, and I was able to find the original source. I also found the same problem in McDougal Littell’s Geometry: An Integrated …
I created this special right triangle discovery activity to help my trigonometry students discover (or rediscover) the patterns in the sides of the 30-60-90 and 45-45-90 special right triangles. 45-45-90 Special Right Triangle Discovery Activity The page I’m showing you FIRST is actually what we did LAST. Yes, I’m that teacher who makes my students …
Hi all! Today I’m super excited to share a guest post from a blog reader who teaches 8th grade Geometry in Washington. She wants to share the very first foldable she created for her geometry students. It is a composition of transformations foldable. Since this is her first post, she doesn’t want me to include …
Build It is a cooperative, team building activity that encourages students to work together, communicate, and think logically as they construct a geometric object to satisfy a set of given clues. If you’re looking to work on vocabulary, this activity introduces/reinforces words such as “face” and “edge.” I learned about Build It from Stanford’s website. The …
Today I want to share some area and perimeter posters I created for my classroom. I spent another afternoon working in my classroom today, and I feel like I actually made a lot of progress. I still need to start working on actual math lesson plans at some point. My principal e-mailed out the schedule …
Area Maze Puzzles from prolific Japanese puzzle creator Naoki Inaba have become quite popular in the United States. This hasn’t always been the case. I first learned about these puzzles from a tweet from Lisa Bejarano. At the time of her tweet, you could only really get your hands on a large number of area …
Since I’m teaching trig this year, I wanted to create some special right triangles posters to jog my students’ memories. Special right triangles are a topic they study in geometry but have often forgotten by the time they end up in my trig class. I designed the title to print on 8.5″ x 11″ and …
I created this set of free printable pythagorean triple posters to help decorate my new classroom. I’m teaching Algebra 1, Trig, and Math Concepts (a class for 9th graders not yet ready for Algebra 1) this year. As I was making a list of things my trig students need to review at the beginning …
SOH CAH TOA. The mnemonic device that sums up the majority of the population’s knowledge of right triangle trigonometry. Today I want to share a free download of a SOHCAHTOA Poster I made for my own classroom. Yesterday, I printed off a heap of posters and started laminating them. Earlier this summer, I had …
I created these stellated icosahedrons from clear plastic straws and curling ribbon. They make the perfect math classroom decoration to hang from the ceiling of my room. I learned how to make these stellated icosahedrons from Janelle Graham. Her blog sadly no longer exists, but I was able to find an archived version of the …