Skills that we learn in Pre-Algebra include: Number Theory, Ratios and Proportions, Transformation, Operations with Decimals, Percents, Operations, Coordinates, Unit Prices, Operations with integers, Variable Expressions etc..
Domino Spiral Task
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For this activity, We had to find out how long it would take for all of these dominoes to fall. We were given how long it took for the first lap of the spiral to fall, then we had to get the rate of fall. We were also given guiding questions, such as what are we trying to solve, and how many dominoes are there. It took some work but, I figured out the math. I took the the amount of time it took for the outside loop to fall (4.06) and divided it by 2 which was 2.03, because I thought that was the rate for each loop to fall. Then, I multiplied 2.03 by 19 since there are about 19 rows in each section of colors. My final answer was 38.57, but the actual amount of time it took for the whole spiral dominoes to fall was 40.1 seconds long. My answer was pretty close, right. The reason I decided to put this activity on my website is because It was very challenging and I thought other people should try it as well.
Penny Boat Design
For the penny boat design, we were instructed to create a boat out of aluminum foil that can hold the most pennies in a pool of water without sinking. Before we tested our boat, we had to modify and shape our design , find dimensions, and find some calculations: the volume and surface area. For testing the boat, we had to start with 10 pennies when we place it in the pool. Once even a little water begins to get inside the foil, it's over. my boat held 365 pennies. I decided to put this activity on my website, because it was fun and we got to do 2 tests to revise based on other designs we saw.
Tessellations
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Tessellations For this task we had to make a tessellation using any unique shapes we wanted. A tessellation or tilting in two dimensions, is the branch of mathematics that studies how shapes, known as tiles, can be arranged to fill a plane without any gaps, according to a given set of rules. I like doing tessellations, because it's a fun way of doing math. I learned that creating tessellations does not depend largely on numerical skills; therefore students with many different levels of mathematical abilities can create them.
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Geogebra
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GeogebraGeogebra is a website that has to do with Geometry and Algebra, and I really love it. On Geogebra we had to make a triangle shape and place it on the center of the x and y coordinate graph, as shown on the left. After we made the triangle, we had to click on tools shown at the bottom of the picture, to get information like the triangle's degrees, angles, and measurements. It can be used on tablets, laptops, iPhone's etc., but it works best on any touchscreen device because you can have fun with moving the shapes around. I learned that Geogebra can also help you do difficult assignments or homework.
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Wheel Of fortune
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Wheel Of Fortune In Pre Algebra class we were working on the units: statistics and probability. First, we had to watch wheel of fortune for two nights, and record how many times the spinner landed on each slide. We needed two days, because to find the probability you need a lot of information to find the average amount of times it landed on each slide. Then two days later, the whole class gathered all their information together to find probability of landing on each slide. I really enjoyed it, because we were able to stay entertained and do homework at the same time.
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