First math word for this workshop: Pentominoes. The figures above are all made using five 1” blocks, and they are connected by at least one side of another block. The first challenge for the big birds was to find all the combinations for pentominoes. Some went to work using strategies from the combinatorics workshop, and others started by moving one block at a time. Quickly, debate came into the room; if you turn a pentomino, is it the same?
This is the question I wanted students to ask. Pentominoes lead us into translations (slides), rotations (spins), and reflections (flips) of objects. We had a great discussion where the students had to convince Cathy and me that there were only twelve combinations. The last challenge for pentominoes was to fit all twelve pentominoes into one rectangle! It sounds pretty easy, but I did not see anyone meet the challenge; including myself!
Our next word for this week: Tessellations. We started off today by looking at examples of tessellations. What do you notice about these examples? What do they all have in common? As a class we came up with patterns, symmetry, repeating, shapes, and no white spaces. Then they had time to explore on their own with pattern blocks. As the workshop progresses, we'll be looking into what polygons tessellate/do not tessellate, how angles play their role, and end by making a tessellation "quilt."
Pentominoes, Tessellations…Isn’t math vocabulary fun? — posted by Naomi Hilmas
The Rookery 
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