Fingerpaints & Rorschach

"This feels like KINDERGARTEN!" shouts a smiling 6th grader, yellow paint all over her hands.
"Look! I got my nails done," kids one of the boys, scarlet dripping from his fingertips.
Another girl has a red streak across her forehead. But there is no paint on the floor. Everybody is participating and I think...I hope... most are learning.

"What do you think this looks like?" asks one student, holding the paper sideways.
"What do you see?"
"I see dancing bunnies!"
"Dancing bunnies? That looks like your MOM," a smartass student replies, mock-scoffing.
"You look like my mom," I retort.
"BUUUUUUURN!"


We were fingerpainting in math class. What better way to continue teaching reflections than by fingerpainting? We made our own Rorschach inkblots (using both x and y axes mind you) then built reflections with manipulatives and used green plastic psuedo-mirrors to test them.

After school, my Elite Wednesday Crew solved problems like this:

One side of a square is 7x-2. If the perimeter is 160 cm, what is x?

Use the distributive process to solve the perimeter of a regular pentagon if one side is 3s + 6 and s equals 4.

AND THEY DID IT. (Can you?) All while on a Sour Skittles high.

Later, I'll tell you how I taught my second class how to differenciate rotations, translations and reflections using the Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood. :)

I'm such a genius, it kills me.

More later. I've had a good day, and will now commence this momentous occasion by partaking in one of my all time favorite activities-- sleeping. Adios!