The broken made whole

Madaba, Jordan
Friday, January 31, 2014

Ninety percent of the "Broken Plates" have now been turned in--and lots of fun they were! A few are pictured here. Here's a link to the instructions--from last year's go-around. For a sense of scale, all plates were made on A3 paper.

Sierpinski's Triangle

More math earrings for me...

Madaba, Jordan
Wednesday, January 29, 2014

A received a set of Perler beads from her cousins for Christmas, and by now she's pretty much addicted. But so am I, I think. This week I made a pair of Sierpinski's triangles--just what every math teacher needs!

Some of A's recent designs...

Raggabirl gets a new outfit

Madaba, Jordan
Saturday, January 25, 2014

With a little help from a friend, I made a new dress for Raggabirl today. A matching dress for A is soon to follow, I hope.

The ORIGINAL "Broken Plate" project

Madaba, Jordan
Friday, January 17, 2014

So, it's almost time once again to do the "Broken Plate" project in my geometry class. It was lots of fun last year, and I hope this class will enjoy it, too. But all the potsherds around this place got me to thinking: I'm going to bring in some real potsherds and see if my students can't use their construction skills (for circumscribing triangles) to make some predictions about the sizes of these pots. I DO wonder how big they really were...The arcs are probably too small (percentage-wise) to get very accurate answers, but who knows!

Tessellate!

Madaba, Jordan
Tuesday, January 14, 2014

This is the week my students' tessellation projects were due. As usual, some really fun work came in. A was even inspired to give it a try as I sat grading the projects. I think you'll be able to spot hers below...

Okay, you found it...

Potsherds

Hisban, Jordan
Sunday, January 12, 2014

I learned a new word today: all my life, I thought broken pot bits were called "pot shards." But today Frank finally convinced me otherwise: "potsherds" it is!

The three of us spent the fading light of a winter afternoon sorting through piles of potsherds at one of our favorite nearby archaeological sites: Tell Hisban. Layers of civilizations have produced pottery bits of all kinds--bits fascinating to travelers young and old.

And the views from the top of the Tell are stunning.

Time to play

Madaba, Jordan
Saturday, January 11, 2014

The lovely luxury of an unexpected three-day weekend. Time to play with beads, shells, Perler beads...

Bye-bye Thailand

Bangkok, Thailand
Thursday, January 2, 2014

One last Thai tea latte (way too orange and way too sweet), and we are headed home to Jordan. Thank you, Thailand--it's been great!