Well hello again.

I’ve been posting a lot lately haven’t I?

Well that’s because we just got back from a big trip, the term is ending, and we are finishing a massive unit. But this post isn’t about the trip, or disruption or anything of that sort.

Today, I will talk about math.

This past term in math we’ve done two projects. One about golden ratios, and now the one this post is about, algebra.

Oh, algebra. Why does math have to involve letters all of a sudden? What’s wrong with using numbers to do math?

Well this unit was more about algebraic expressions and algebra tiles. We did a lot of practice working with algebra tiles in different types of equations. We learned about three main types:

1. Factoring expressions

2. Expanding expressions

3. And perfect squares

We then spent the better parts of our classes working on worksheets, and smaller assignments, so we’d know the math we needed for a project.

Once we’d done a lot of practice and worksheets, we were briefed on our project.

We were to create and design our own board game that was fun and showed all the math skills we were learning. It was a partner project, and I ended up with my main man, Simon Devisser.

Our first idea for the board game was a fast paced card game. The idea was that you’d have a pile of cards with algebraic expressions on them in the centre. The card would either have a diagram of some algebra tiles, and if you flipped over that card you’d write out the equation, and if the card had an equation on it, you would have to arrange the algebra tiles. Whoever completes the equation on the card first would win.  So, the first player would flip over a card and both players would race to complete the expression, and whoever completed it first would earn a point.

But this idea didn’t showcase all the math functions and skills that it needed to, and was a little too repetitive. So we began working on another new idea.

And we came up with a good one, in my opinion. We thought that we’d make a board game with a little bit of a twist. Instead of having a board with a start and a finish, we’d make one without an end.

The way you would finish was by collecting all the algebra tiles you needed to complete the algebraic expression you were given at the beginning. You earned points by answering more algebraic expressions correctly along the way. Whoever collected all their tiles first wins.

We even made a video of us explaining how to play the game, and us actually playing it:

Me and Simon got together and made our board game. We set out all the pieces and got ready to play. We filmed us briefly explaining how everything worked, and then showed a short version of us playing the game.

When we actually started playing, it went a lot smoother than I thought. I didn’t really know if everything would work right, or the expressions would be too hard or something, but it all went really well. Me and Simon played by the rules, and some we had to make up as we went along and figured out how it worked. But I’d say that we were really prepared and we both had a strong idea of what the game would look like and be like to play, and we pulled it off with flying colours.

The game itself was actually kind of fun to play, surprisingly. We should sell it to… some company…

Overall I was really happy with how everything went. The one thing I would improve on is our procrastination and time management in class. Sometimes in class we’d get distracted or carried away with something else, and would lose valuable classtime. I think that we should’ve focused more in class, and that would have made it a lot easier on us in the long run. I say that because we left the whole project other than the planning stage until the very last minute, which made us hand in our project video a little late. But other than that, I am quite proud of this project.

 

Thanks for reading,

 

See you