Thursdayâs lesson was all about patterns. At the beginning of class Hanley reviewed the parts of a function talked about on Tuesday: input, output, and a rule. She compared this to patterns. With patterns, we can usually see the input and output and determine the rule. The class practiced finding the rule with some patterns of numbers and then practiced using the Number Cruncher activity on Interactivate. In Number Cruncher, the student enters the input, and the activity generates the output so that the student can determine the rule. They also used Sequencer, which lets the student set the rule and the input, and then observe the graph of the output.
Next, Hanley introduced the class to tessellations. The students experimented with all of the shapes that can make regular tessellations on Interactivate. They printed a tessellation that they created on interactivate and the class did an activity where each person found the original shape of his or her tessellation. Finally, the class looked at the work of MC Escher, an artist who created many tessellations in his work, and other pieces of art involving tessellations.