Quadratic Frames – Totally Nguyening

If you teach middle school math or Algebra 1 and you are not reading Fawn’s blog, then you should.  I get all of my ideas and inspiration from her!

She posted a great activity about Quadratics and framing.  Please go read her post for instructions.  I wanted to post how I modified her activity for Pre-Algebra (using simple factoring instead of the quadratic formula).  I followed her instructions exactly, and modified four things.

1. I teach Pre-Algebra so I made the problem easier for my students so that the numbers would be easily factorable and not need the quadratic formula.  As a result, my students were more easily able to discover the frame dimensions (sadly, they did not beg).  It did take most of them quite a while however and they appreciated when I finally showed them the math.
2. I had my students draw their own picture on a 3×5 index card.  They could also take a picture and bring it in.  This way I didn’t have to find a picture for them, or print it and make copies, or cut it out.  (Yes, I’m lazy and they love being creative so it was win-win.)
3. I used index cards so I wouldn’t have to cut up a bunch of paper to the perfect size.  Really Fawn, you are a saint.  I had my students draw the picture on 3×5 index cards, then I used 4×6 index cards for the frame.  I cut them down to 4×5 to make the border an even 1″ (see #1).
4. I had them post the finish product on a half sheet of paper.  This way they could glue down the picture and the frame instead of using tape.  I am always short on tape.  Also, on the back of the picture is where we all “did the math”.

I am posting mainly to say THANK YOU for Fawn, and to share my students creations!  I am really into notebooks so I also included an idea for adding the work to the students notebook.

The Process:

The finished product:

On the back of their picture, we did the math.

The Notebook Entry:

It’s like a foldable!