This post contains information related to my presentation, Snail Power, at the NWAIS Fall Educators Conference on October 12, 2018.

Snail Power is a prealgebra mathematics lesson about proportional reasoning and making mathematical comparisons. In the lesson, students collect data about the pulling strength of a land snail by (humanely) connecting it to a pulling harness. We then compare the strength data for the various snails, and discover how much we humans could pull if we were, relatively speaking, as strong as a snail.

In all fairness, there's a lot of overhead to this lesson. Working with live animals -- and caring for them in the "off season" -- requires ongoing attention that will make this lesson prohibitive for most teachers. Plus, there are probably hundreds of activities that could teach the same mathematical content.

However... I have never taught a lesson that brings more delight and energy to my classroom. This lesson is a show-stopper that students will remember and talk about for years!

Here's a link to a shared folder that contains both the conference presentation slides and the student-facing presentation.

For those who would like to learn more about keeping snails as classroom pets, I recommend the websites www.petsnails.co.uk and www.molluscs.at.

I'm not much of a blogger, and so I have pretty much ignored this part of my website since I created it in 2015. I'm hoping to change that this year.

When I put this website together, I saw it as a place for me to organize and share work I've done merging two of my favorite things: mathematics and storytelling. My recent motivation to become more visible online stems from my desire to share a particular project that I'm really excited about. Creating it has been a labor of love over the past few years and, dear reader, I hope you'll check it out.
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The Arithmetiquities is a collection of thirty-six "problem of the week" activities, with a focus on pre-algebra mathematics. Each problem in the collection is one chapter in an ongoing narrative set in a quirky, Tolkien-esque fantasy world. The full tale of our heroes unfolds problem-by-problem over the course of a school year.

My plan is to release the chapters four-at-a-time, on the first (or so) of the month. I also have a solutions manual available for teachers who would like it; please send me a note! The first four chapters of the adventure -- in which we begin to meet our cast of heroes -- are ready to browse on the website, www.arithmetiquities.org.

I couldn't have gotten to this place without help. Some of the problems in the collection are original, some are "re-skinned" versions of problems that have appeared elsewhere. Plus, each chapter has been illustrated by the immensely talented Robot Arms, who also did the character artwork. I offer my thanks to all the giants on whose shoulders I am standing.

Seventh graders explored pyramids, cones, and spheres. We derived, informally, formulas for the volumes of these shapes by relating the unfamiliar volumes to the volumes of prisms and cylinders -- shapes for which we already knew the formulas.

In Wolfpack this week we did "partner drawing" to emphasize teamwork. Two kiddos sit back-to-back. One partner has a simple picture that they must describe so that the other partner can draw it.

So... I haven't been able to keep up with the 180 photo blog. Perhaps that's not a huge surprise. There's a lot going on during the typical day at school, and I'm not always thinking of snapping a picture. Here are some highlights from the past months...

One of my advisees created a selfie station outside my door, where you could take your picture with a hug-starved cactus. Or not.

The World's Strongest Snail competition. There were a lot of pictures from this day, here's a good one!

At the start of our 3D geometry unit, seventh graders used Polydrons to find all the possible ways to arrange six squares into a flat pattern (called a net) that would fold up into a cube.

Again on the search for all possible ways to accomplish some task! This time, students were tasked with finding all the ways to arrange 24 unit cubes into a rectangular prism, and then to find the surface area of each prism. One of our goals was to make a conjecture regarding the the prism that would have the smallest surface area given any number of unit cubes.

In prealgebra, I challenged students to use their knowledge of ratio to create colored water solutions of different volumes which all had exactly the same shade of greenness as my target solution.

In algebra, we simulated Aesop's fable "The Crow and the Pitcher", dropping cubes into a graduated cylinder and recording the incremental changes in the water level.

The week before winter break got a little hectic with the celebrating, gift-giving, and the last math quizzes of the calendar year. My students and colleagues were very generous, and it was fun to participate in two different circles of "Secret Snowman".

Which of these gifts would be your favorite? The juggling oranges, the wind-up zombie, or the purple unicorn clock that was part of the White Elephant exchange?

My fifth grade boys in the juggling elective are awfully rough on the props...

Beetle races in algebra! We let loose some mealworm beetles and traced their path (rocked out in 5-second intervals). Fun! Next time we will analyze the data and make some distance-time graphs.