Math is All Around Our World!

My students have a number of charts that teach them about the important math vocabulary that we are learning in Third Grade. They are helpful, but not terribly personal or engaging! With digital cameras, they will work in teams of 2 or 3 to find a real world example of math terms found in our world. They will be on the lookout for parallel lines, isoceles triangles, perpendicular lines, right angles, acute angles, etc. As they point out these important vocabulary words around our school, they will describe, using the flip camera, each term they find and record in there own words, including how the image they found meet the definition of that shape. They will then share their findings with the other teams in our class. We will discuss each finding as a class and agree with or ask more quesitons about what mathematical terms they found. Finally, we will compile our findings into one presentation using our new laptop. We will then share our Math in Our World movie with the 5 other Third Grade classrooms at our school to help them reveiw and practice this important academic vocabulary. This hands-on experience will improve my students' technology skills, but will, more importantly, provide them with an authentic experience enabling them to review and practice the mathematical terms we have learned this year! Then, when our state comes in early May, my students will be able to shout: "Bring on the Test" (which I will also capture on the flip camera) because they will be VERY ready to show what they know about important math terms on that most important test!!