Friday, March 19, 2010

19.1 Customary Conversion

Here is a link that shows nice examples for customary measurement and units for conversion from Mountain City Elementary
Try this matching game made by Harcourt (the people who make our textbooks)

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

18.4 Symmetry

We will discuss two kinds of symmetry:
1. line symmetry: reflection across a line of symmetry
- the image below has line symmetry, this is shown with the dotted lines

2. rotational symmetry: turning around a center point (point of rotation) and lining up again
-the flowers above also have rotational symmetry because you could turn them and have them line up again.

Check out these links from mathisfun.com for line symmetry and rotational symmetry

Monday, March 15, 2010

18.2 Tessellations (p.397-399)

A tessellation is a design of repeating shapes that fit together without gaps or overlaps.
Shapes that tessellate easily include:
  • triangles (three sided)
  • quadrilaterals (four sided)
  • parallelograms (opposite sides parallel - and congruent)
This link from DIY Tessellations is very helpful for helping you think about how to make your own tessellation.
M. C. Escher is likely the best known artist who used tessellations. Check out this link with some of his tessellations:
Here is a link of "wallpaper patterns" that Escher used as inspiration