I remember something...But I forget what I'm missing!

Sheila's Grade 7 class was used as our demonstration class for our PLC recently.  Sheila had been working in the Geometry strand in math and was going to be switching into Measurement.  Her lesson the day before had been on investigating right prisms and wanted to make the switch to surface area.  She wanted to see what they remembered about surface area before moving on. 

For the "minds on" the students were asked "What are some things that you have seen covered?"  After wait time, and time to turn and talk, the class shared things that they had seen covered.  Some of the answers were:  clothes (as they cover our bodies and come in different sizes), tarps for cars, wrapping paper (for presents), vehicles as they can be wrapped with advertising and (the group's favourite) chocolate covered strawberries.  The class then had a discussion on what they would have to do if they wanted to paint the top of their desk.  They decided that they would need to find out the area of the top of the desk in order to paint it.  (Especially if they didn't want to waste paint).  They then had a discussion about what they would need to do in order to find our how much paint they would need for the entire desk.  After some discussion, the class decided they would need to find the surface area of the desk to help tell them how much paint they would need to buy.

For the "action" the student used their polydron structures from the previous lesson to find out "how much" they would need to cover the polydron.  To provide some differentiation between the students half of the class was given a rectangular prism and the other half was given a triangular prism.  They then quickly went to work finding out the surface area of the polydron structure.  For a few of the groups, they knew that they had to do something "different" for the triangle, but couldn't remember what it was.  As a group they tried to come up with solutions and ideas on what it was they were "missing."  It was suggested that they turn to their text to help them "remember."  (One group announced quite loudly "Isn't that cheating?" to which the response was "No, it's using a tool to help you.")

To consolidate, each group presented their work during a congress.  The class gave descriptive feedback to them on what elements were done very well, and what they could do or add next time to improve upon their answer.  The pictures below are of their final work, after the congress:

This group had a cube and quickly used a formula to solve for the surface area.

A net was drawn to help them remember the area of all of the surfaces.

You can see that this group applied a lot of what they had learned previously in Geometry to help them solve their problem.

Organization was a strength for this group.

An organized chart was created to help add up the area of each of the faces of the triangular prism.

  A lot of learning happened this morning for both students and teachers alike.  A thank you for this great experience goes to Sheila and her students.