Wednesday, June 29, 2011

What's a Rhombus??

Dictionary.com says a rhombus is an oblique-angled equilateral parallelogram. In this video above they asked simple questions like what is a rhombus to random people....it was sad to see not too many answered correctly.
I have to confess that I didn't know it right off the bat either. I have a hard time remembering things like this. I need to see things visually or have it connected to something. Like at the end of the video, Bob asked 867-5_ _ _ and the kid could remember 309.
It makes me kinda sad that this is what society has created.  Kids now-a-days, can sing all kinds of theme songs to cartoons or commercials but ask them a simple math question and they don't know it.
I know I will be looking into Rock in the Standards website to see if I could incorporate them into my classroom and even my children's lives. I can see playing one of the math songs at the beginning of math class. I know I have used some math raps before in school.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Tables, Graphs, and Charts



I have always been a visual learner, so tables, graphs and charts are right up my alley.  I could read instructions or directions for a problem and I will not understand it very well. If it comes with a table, chart or graphs I can make the connect between the equation and the information provided. Same goes for if I just get information, I try to put the information in to a chart so I can see the relationship between the data.
As far as being a teacher and using charts to help students learn, I am behind it 100%.  I feel that if you show students how to use different graphs and visual aids that the will increase their learning potential.