ACTIVITY- CREATE A FRACTAL OF YOUR OWN!

Step One

Draw an equilateral triangle with sides of 2 triangle lengths each. Connect the midpoints of each side. How many equilateral triangles do you now have? Shade out the triangle in the center. Think of this as cutting a hole in the triangle.

Step Two

Draw another equilateral triangle with sides of 4 triangle lengths each. Connect the midpoints of the sides and shade the triangle in the center as before. Notice the three small triangles that also need to be shaded out in each of the three triangles on each corner – three more holes.

Step Three

Draw an equilateral triangle with sides of 8 triangle lengths each. Follow the same procedure as before, making sure to follow the shading pattern. You will have 1 large, 3 medium, and 9 small triangles shaded.

Step Four

How about doing this one on a poster board? Follow the above pattern and complete the Sierpinski Triangle. Use your artistic creativity and shade the triangles in interesting color patterns. Does your figure look like this one? Then you are correct!

ACTIVITY – MATCHING AND UNLABELING

Ask your students to write down in their journal as many of the Simple Machines that they can remember. Share with the class. Ask what a screw is and how it helps us? How about an inclined plane? How does it help us? Give each student a paper with pictures and definitions of each simple machine they have learned about. Now have students cut them apart and put them in their journals or on a new piece of paper. Have them put the definition next to the machine and color each simple machine and definition a different color. For example, Lever = green, Inclined plane = blue etc. (This is just to get them more familiar with the different simple machines. Hopefully by this time they are starting to be able to tell the teacher what simple machines different objects are.) Next, have them test a partner on the definitions of each simple machine and see if they can name which simple machine it is. An example is one student asks another “This simple machine is an inclined plane wrapped around a pole?” If the other student does not get it the student can be given some hints or examples to help them. Make sure the students switch off and everyone gets a turn to try to figure out the simple machines.

ACTIVITY – WRITING

Have students invent a machine. Describe, draw and label it. Share with the class and tell them why it would be useful for everyone to use. Talk about what life would be like without machines. Write as if there were none. What would their life be like? What things would they not be able to do? Have students write about what they think the most important invention is? Why?