Success!

The 3-D project turned out to be the coolest project I've done all year with my regular kids. The constructions looked amazing and I think I actually looked over ALL of their volume and surface area results before they submitted their work on Friday, so their calculation grades should be fairly high as well. It was really amazing -- the kids were super motivated because they thought designing/measuring nets and then building things out of a net was ridiculously fun, and they really understood when I said that surface area does not include any two surfaces that are glued together (ie. the bottom of a pyramid, if the pyramid is attached to another prism, and you'd also have to subtract that pyramid base area from the top surface of the prism as well). And they had to really understand slant height versus real height of a pyramid, in order to correctly calculate both surface area and volume of the pyramids. Some groups chose to make hexagonal prisms and hexagonal pyramids, which made their calculations even more exciting/challenging! A bunch of groups also built 3-D concavities into their solid, which added to their overall surface area and took away from their overall volumes.

It was really, REALLY great. On Friday in class I let the kids just have a fun day decorating their composite solids. Meanwhile, I went around and did a final check of their volumes and surface areas to make sure they understood all the big concepts of the project.

After school, some 11th-graders who came by to turn stuff in were amazed that the projects piled on my desk were made by regular 9th-graders. :) Yeah!!!

For sure, pictures will come. I can't decide if I should be taking pictures of their beautifully decorated solids or scanning in their beautiful perspective drawings and 2-D nets and calculations. This week has been CRAZY but oh-so-worth-it!!

PS. The geometric magazine is also coming along smoothly. I think in about a week I'll have a polished PDF I can post to share with you all! This entire week has been crazy from reading their gazillion drafts and offering detailed feedback daily, while managing other projects across every class. I haven't touched Google Reader all week; that's how bad it was. But I think I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and their final drafts are quite lovely! :)