Tetris, Jezzball, and More

I think math is fun. It's puzzley goodness. 

I'm a math teacher, so I realize that means I'm weird. I don't think that makes me completely wrong.

I like to try and find little ways to make math class a little more fun. Usually it's something small and a mere 15 minutes out of the hour and a half of class.

While we were learning about logic, I introduced a new logic puzzle each day (Sudoku, Kenken, Picross, etc). Now that we're in polygons, I offered bribes for trying out Tetris (which many kids had never heard of).

I played a quick round when I got home. There are a lot of little things that make it a lot easier than on the original Gameboy. I only scored 83 or so, shrugged, and called it a day.

Carrie heard and got competitive! She scored 110 or something like that to claim dominance.

A younger me might have said, "Challenge accepted!' I let her have the victory and then blew her mind with the top score a student emailed me.

That's right! One of my students racked up 198 lines after she left me class. She said her next class wasn't doing anything and she wanted to beat the highest score I'd ever seen! 

I found I modify my reward structure with each class. At first, I offered an honors class a pack of gum for the high score and most kids opted to do their HW instead. The next honors class I offered the top three scores a prize and I got a little more participation. For my advanced classes, I offered a "beat this score earn a prize" model and even more kids tried when there was no direct competition. 

Lesson learned, I guess. 

For the next game, I wanted to find a good Qix game online. I settled for Jezzball.

It wasn't as popular as Tetris.

My co-teacher, Mary, thought it would be fun to try some linear art/curve-stitching one day. I agreed and we went for it.

One of the things I say over, and over, and over again is "Math is patterns." Sure, we use weird symbols and numbers, but under it all it's just patterns. Our brains are wired for patterns. I figure if the kids learn about any patterns they're more likely to increase their ability to learn the specific patterns I'm teaching or generalize their knowledge.

A lot kids really liked the project. I'm not an art teacher, so I graded purely on completion.

One kid (who's definitely an artist) took hers to the next level.

I had one class where several of the kids got interested in optical illusions.

None of it's on an SOL, but there's a joy in learning something new and getting into it. Hopefully, any kid who was in my class will be better at math, have a friend in the building, and remember a few things that captured their attention.