Graphing and Tangrams with Living Math

by Jimmie on March 12, 2009

More adventures into living math!

I took a look at what topics in our Singapore Math we had not yet finished. Then I went through my Family Math book to find or think of hands-on activities and puzzles that would teach those concepts.

Graphs were easy enough. For data, we went to the sidewalk and recorded the types of vehicles that passed during a four minute period. We had quite a discussion when a woman pushing a wheelbarrow passed by. Is a wheelbarrow a vehicle? Sprite decided it did qualify as a vehicle, so it got added to the data sheet.

First, I have Sprite number blocks and asked her to create a graph of her data with them. I got this idea from Westward’s blog post of making 3D graphs.

setting up 3d graph

Hands-on Graphing

Then she input this data at this site to make a fancy circle graph.

circle graph of traffic

Traffic Graph

Another topic was angles, so I chose tangrams. We read our brand new book The Warlord’s Puzzle, made homemade tangrams with craft foam, and of course solved tangram puzzles. (All of the tangram resources are linked at Tangrams.)

yellow tangram

Tangram Play

Sprite created some tangram inspired art and ATCs (artist trading cards) as well.

tangram art4

Tangram Rabbits

Jockeys on horses.

tangram art jockeys

Tangram Jockeys Riding Horses

These ATCs are a work in progress that we will finish later.

tangram play

Tangram Artist Trading Cards

Related posts:

  1. Living Math with Angles
  2. Living Math with Area and Perimeter
  3. Living Math Update – Fractions

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