Pestalozzi Gymnasium Unna

Gallery of hands-on activities

Students used an egg cutter to divide eggs in equal slices and calculated the volume of each cylinder. Then they calculated the total volume by adding the the volume of all slices. For the end parts they subtracted a little bit because these pieces were no full cylinders. They compared the volume that they had calculated by this method with the calculation via formula V =2/3*PI*a^2*b.

Approximating the volume of an egg

Click here to start the video!

Some students prepared a hands-on activity for their class and leaded small groups of 4 or 5 that worked around (a-b)².

more information and worksheet

Binomial formula hands-on

Young students like to discover maths while playing. There is a lesson plan how to use the playmobil dolls to introduce calculating with negative numbers. more pictures and lesson plan

Calculating with negative numbers

A lot of round plates, boxes, … are measured and the ratio of perimenter and radius is calculated. So students detected by themselves that there is a constant, called PI. Pictures, lesson plan and evaluation ...

Discovering PI by measurements

A lot of activities can be done by using plastic forms. The basic forms are triangles (isoceles, right-angled), squares, pentagons and hexagons. The material is called Polydron and can be ordered easily via internet.

You may order Polydron here (the coffret is enough for groupwork in a class)

Platonic and other solids with Polydron

It is another way to build solids. It is more creative than using Polydron. You also can take thin straws. It is important that the Plasticine is hard enough!

A lesson plan will follow!

Solids with tooth peaks

Students normally know Archimedes principle from their physics lessons to determine the volume of a solid. Students may compare the results with the the formula V=2/3*PI*a^2*b to calculate the volume of an egg.

Determing the volume of an egg

Students like this game to determine suitable probabilities for different positions and then calculating probabilities for positions if two or three pigs were diced.

look at the task (worksheet)

The game "Pass the pig" and probability

Not demanding but in times of football world championship ....

task with printable worksheet

Folding a football from paper

Draw some graphs of degree three or four on the schoolyard. Students have to walk along the graph pointing with the right arm on the ground if there is a right curvature, to the left if the graph curves right. So students really get to know the meaning of an inflection point of a graph.

Graphs on the schoolyard

Students discovered reflections and the relation between the angle between two mirrors and the number of mirror images.

Look at the task (in German) and the evaluation report

Experiments with two Mirrors

Students discovered the concept of solving equations by doing equivalent transformations hands-on.

Students’ report and lesson plan will follow!

Experiments with matchboxes and matches

LÜK system (abreviation of learning- training-control) consist of of a box with tiles with numbers on one side and a colored pattern on the other side. It is used in cobination with a booklet e.g. for booklets for fractions, percentages or word problems. 24 tasks have to be solved. By placing the tiles on the correct square a multicoloured, symmetrical control pattern is formed on the back of the tiles. -> more information how to order it

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LÜK system for training and self-control

KUBUS is a game for younger students to practise and improve their conception of space. The left picture shows a game with nice looking tiles that can be ordered here. On the right picture you can see that this game can be easily made with colured corkboard.

There is an english description of the rules, too.

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Game CUBUS

So-called elastic thera-bands for gym can be marked with a water-soluble pen with 100% referred to the length of classroom’s tables. Then the elastic band is divided in 10 distances, so that you get a scale from 0 % to 100 %. Then different objets in the classroom can be maesured and the lengths can be indicated as percentages of the table’s length.

Percentages with an elastic band

More hands-on activities that we used in different classes will follow in pictures and videos, with lesson plans and worksheets, too.