Hexagonal Informational Garden

So I broke a bit of the golden rule in class, but it was worth it.  I know when designing a lesson, we are supposed to connect each lesson to something into the real world and try to connect it outside the school walls.  This time I decided to stay within the school walls and tell the kids the truth.  They were helping me with the bulletin board since I was in charge of this months display.  Ugh!!  I hate my turn on the bulletin board.

We've been talking a whole lot about draw tools and paint tools in our evening class.  Naturally, I strayed right towards that, but not before I thought about how to implement it.  In Geometry, there are two draw tools that have been all of the talk for geometry teachers, SketchPad (paid) and Geogebra (free).  I took the time to introduce them to the tool.  I gave them a short step - by - step instruction sheet that would help them explore some of the basic tools and teach them how to create a cube using the tools.  What was great is that the instructions implemented the techniques used in creating the figure just as we had previously done using other tools (compass, ruler, protractor).  So the connection was made with the students.  They also become really familiar with terminology such as points, line segments, rays, parallels, and I can keep going, but bottom line is each tool has a picture with it.  This really helps them treat these basics like second nature because of the repetition of use.

So, to make a long story longer.  I have a bulletin board.  I took the students through some of the basics on how to start creating the hexagon.  I then showed them how to transfer their picture into paint and use the fill tool, resize, and change colors.  Ultimately, they had a choice.  Once they followed the directions on creating a hexagon using a certain design, they were to either print it out and color it with their own style or put it into paint and use the paint program to do the same thing, then add a stem onto it so it became a flower.  They were then to grab a snap of information (I told them to google "cool infographics"), and paste this to their hexagon.  I showed them a finished product that I had done previously and that is all it took.  So the criteria was for them to create the two designs I had showed them for credit, then they can create their own flowers on their own time for extra points, ultimately helping the HEXAGONAL GARDEN GROW throughout the month.

In a quick wrap up, the students actually leaned more towards using the paint program to color their pictures. They loved the fact that they could choose the information that went onto their flower.  They loved to design something that was going to help out.  Their fluency in the program was exponential.  They helped each other in design and navigation.  They started to see the benefits of the constructions that we were doing previously without the software program.  The 'Norton approved'  think out loud approach to showing them the software  was definitely the best approach.