by MathPickle | Dec 9, 2015 |
Can you tile this big L shape with identical, but smaller copies of itself? If so, the shape is called a rep-tile (repeating tile). However, that’s not what we are going to be looking at here. We are going to explore “irreptiles” which are shapes...
by MathPickle | Oct 12, 2015 |
There is one great minaret at Samarra, but what happened if Caliph al-Mutawakkil decided to build twelve!?! The Caliph loved beautiful geometry, so if he had built twelve minarets, he might have chosen to build them in an array with 90 degree rotational...
by MathPickle | Sep 29, 2015 |
Embryo Morphogenesis is a mathematical mini-universe. It is governed by laws which your students must figure out. Mini-mathematical universes like this are possibly a great way to learn the scientific method. It still needs work. If you’re embarking on this...
by MathPickle | Sep 19, 2015 |
Zome Zome is a manipulative that is excellent for the upper grades – however it takes time to put away and is fragile. Nevertheless, there is no manipulative so versatile on the market, so it should be considered. I am now equally in favour (especially for...
by MathPickle | Sep 19, 2015 |
Taxi Cab Squares (inspired by the Inscribed square problem of Otto Toeplitz, 1911) Give your students practice with Cartesian coordinates as they explore a new variant of a famous, unsolved problem of Otto Toeplitz (1911). This problem has a very wide spectrum of...
