I am going to go with “Binary (days 10-12)” …
The students will use the flappy-doo to firm up their understanding and then create a “coded” holiday sign/card that can only be read by someone who is equally proficient in Binary.
I will be doing Unit 2: Day 15 - 16 Sorting. I will be using different types of candy
I am doing day 10-12 Binary.
I found some great active websites that challenge the student to a game like tetris to complete different binary codes.
A very related topic is ciphers and cryptology. NSA has a fun website that help with both binary and leads to understanding the basics of ciphering. nsa.gov/kids.
The cornrow curves project because we can make it more culturally responsive and have a lot of student input.
Binary Lesson
Activity: Students will each have a set of binary cards with dots: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16
The side of the dots will also have a light bulb drawn on it, indicating: the card is turned:ON
The back side of the card that is blank, will have a line thru the light bulb indicating turned: OFF
All cards faced up represent:11111 in binary and in decimal it equals: 31
In binary “1” indicates ON, “0” indicates: OFF
Students explain how 11111=31,
Other numbers lower than 31 are called out to the class to see if they can write it in binary.
I will tackle Minimal Spanning Trees.
I am going to be using the minimal spanning tree.
They are going to be creating spanning trees for their week off during thanksgiving.
This is the directions worksheet I used… let me know if it doesn’t come up and I will try sharing another route.
https://drive.google.com/a/fruitlandschools.org/file/d/0Bx-QmM1Gz8UvVXlYelduV3hxR0E/view?usp=sharing
This is the handout picture for them to fill in with the #'s
https://drive.google.com/a/fruitlandschools.org/file/d/0Bx-QmM1Gz8Uvekp6UDMxWTVRWk0/view?usp=sharing
When students completed the activity in a timely fashion, I had previously surveyed them on their top 3 candy bars. So once they finished the activity and got the numbers correct to look like mine, they solved the candy bar activity where they had to find the fewest cuts to share …if they could draw an example and their answer was correct they got to choose a candy bar.
Then the following day they all had to choose a different icon/symbol and write their choice on the board, etc. Target symbol or Nike swoosh, or Toyota symbol…no two could be the same…and they had to create the symbol in the cornrow App and give us their #'s that created such shapes.
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I will be doing the Spanning Trees with Graphs activity.
I created an extension for the Muddy City as a larger assignment to account for potential differences within the same map by accounting for a different goal. We took the Muddy City map and made laminated half-sheets (a larger graph on the back) so that students could draw on them with dry erase markers.
Big Muddy City Half Size.pdf (89.2 KB) Muddy City Half Size.docx (440.4 KB) Unit2Day17MinimalSpanningTreeHomework.pdf (132.5 KB)
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I love your idea because it solves a real-life problem. Our school district is the the second largest geographically in Idaho. Our technology department has its hands full connecting the eleven schools in the district network. My students used data from the technology department to minimize the cost of connecting the schools with fiber optic cable.
I’m working on the Binary lesson.
I taught the sorting lesson, using an idea I learned from this summer’s workshop. I put different weights of candy in several bags for each group and challenged them to sort them by weight without looking. This helped build our community as students worked together then enjoyed their candy. We watched the CS Unplugged video that explains sorting methods. Students worked together to develop carpooling projects. This allowed them to use and reflect on problem solving techniques, use various mapping sites, and be creative in their final project.
I will be working on the challenge ‘Sorting Algorithms’ Day 15 and 16
I will be working on sorting
Here’s what I did for binary numbers.
We started off with this from my class website.
Once I did a quick lesson on the board about how to count in binary, I let them try the online game. You have to decode the binary code on the website to get the link to the game.
For some extra practice, we tried the following worksheet.
Binary Practice.docx (15.1 KB)
Binary Practice_solutions.pdf (375.7 KB)
I will work on an assignment to help students be able to create binary by converting decimal numbers into binary numbers and vice versa.