This section of the site features Projects, Lessons and Problems that I have either created, or have remixed to the point that I feel they push beyond the existing content already out there. I hope you find them useful for your classrooms!
Problems are short explorations, puzzles or games that can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. These are extra-curricular, and intended to be purely recreational.
Lessons are a designed for a single full-class session. They contain enough information for another teacher to make the the lesson their own without dictating every aspect of the class. They each use the three-act lesson’s Engage, Activate and Reflect phases, along with differentiation support.
Projects can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a full unit. They encompass several lessons and use Synapse School’s HEARTS model to structure the project flow. As with the lessons, these are not plug-and-play, requiring teachers to put in some work to make the project their own.
-
Problem: Decode the Table
I got this problem from math teacher influencer Howie Hua, and gave it to Synapse parents as a Do Now for a Parent Ed presentation. It’s the perfect bite-sized snack that has a relatively low floor, and provides a great challenge. Spice Level: 🔥🔥🔥⚪⚪ Field of Math: Algebra, Number Theory Explore the following table of…
-
Lesson: Find the Steepest Slope!
Essential Question: What is the steepest staircase on campus? How can we measure it? Overview: This lesson sits at the beginning of a unit or project on linear functions and serves as an embodied introduction to the idea of slope. At this point in an algebra or pre-algebra curriculum, students are familiar with angles as…
-
Lesson: Dog Years
Essential Question: When will my dog and I be the same age in Dog Years? Overview: in this lesson students know my birthday, my dog’s birthday, and the conversion that 1 rotation around the sun = 7 dog years. I usually use this lesson before formalizing what a system of equations is, and use it…
-
Problem: Kiran’s Karnival Koin Flip Extravanganza
This problem was posed to me by a student (whose name has been altered here). I remixed it into this challenging probability puzzle. Good luck! Spice Level: 🔥🔥🔥🔥⚪ Field of Math: Probability Kiran’s Karnival offers a simple coin flipping game. Here are the rules: The game costs $3 to play, but you get paid $1…