Math for the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh & Eighth Graders

For the students in my upper grade classes, I've been working with them in math. The fifth and sixth graders are learning about discrete mathematics. That means that they get to solve Euler and Hamiltonian paths and circuits. They also get to work on logic problems and game theory. This will be the final week working with them in discrete math. Next week we start working on those fiendishly hard word problems.
The seventh and eighth graders are learning about symmetry. They have worked hard on understanding the four kinds of transformations (rotation, translation, reflection & glide reflection). They know how these transformation relate to symmetry. This week we are going to work with tessellations and learn little about M.C. Escher.

What's New

Sorry for not updating the blog. The new year is busier than the old one. For the next six weeks, I'll be teaching math to the fifth through eighth graders. The first through fourth graders will be taught science.

I've been teaching the first and second graders the mysteries of flight. They've been learning about aerodynamics especially about lift. Instead of building paper airplanes, we've built boomerangs. We started off small. They built finger boomerangs out of index cards. We graduated to the full sized ones constructed out of foam board. Of course some of the student's boomerangs got caught stuck on the roof.

The third and fourth graders have also been learning about aerodynamics. We concentrated, however, on hot air balloons and how they work. They've learned that hot air is less dense than cold air and, therefore, lighter. That's why the hot air balloons are able to float in the sky. The third and fourth graders are constructing hot air balloons out of tissue paper. Next week we plan to launch them.

Tomorrow I'll write about what the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth graders have been doing in my math classes.