Math by Tori: Colorful Dodecahedrons

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for interesting ways to gather feedback from my students. I wanted to get a feel of how my two Geometry Honors classes felt the second half of the year went. At the semester break, their former teacher left for a family illness and my schedule was revamped to take these two classes. I fell in love with these students immediately. They were hard-working, curious individuals that, I have found recently, love a challenge.

So my choice of search for all things awesome sent me to Pinterest! It was there that I found the colorful dodecahedrons created by 12 inscribed pentagons and numerous staples! So as the pin was on my screen, I opened Geometer's Sketchpad and created this template. (I later created a larger version for next year.)

I was only planning to have my Geometry Honors classes participate, but I woke up with the beginnings of a migraine and decided my Algebra 2 classes could do the same thing. I went into school before the kids arrived and made copies on colored paper. While I was setting my room up for my sub, she walked in. I briefly explained that each student needed to fill out 2 pentagons, cut the circles out and fold on the dotted lines (pentagon). For each shape, they were to write about a lesson they learned this year and/or an activity that they enjoyed.

When I came back in the next day, my awesome sub had found my Ziploc baggies, filled each one with a class of pentagons and labelled them!! For the next two periods, while my students worked on their surface area/volume project, I walked around with a few pentagons and a stapler in my hand, putting together a total of 14 dodecahedrons. (It took over a day to staple them all.) As I was walking around, my kids asked questions about the shape that I was creating. So, I showed them a finished one and asked them to guess how many pentagons made the solid. They were really into guessing and many got it right the first time. I then asked what it was called. After a couple seconds they were able to tell me dodecahedron (some said dodecagon first and I just waited).

The next day during my planning period, which fortunately is attached to my lunchtime (!!!), I hung them from the ceiling with fishing line. I thought 14 would be too many, but once I got them all up, I wished I had more. That's why I created a larger version of the inscribed pentagons so it would fill up more space, plus the students would be expected to write more details.

I have passed this project idea along to a couple of colleagues and look forward to sharing with other teachers during post-planning this year, or pre-planning next year. While this is not my original idea, it is an original template.

I need to pull one of them down and count the number of staples. That will be a question I ask my students. I love to listen to them explain their thinking!