Amanda Takes Off...

"It's magical!" a student said, after we found multiple patterns in a chart during math class.

"No," I said, "it's math."

"It's mathical!"

In class we're doing a lot with globes. My students can label the seven continents and five (yes, five) oceans, but going from a two-dimensional map to a three-dimensional world is a big leap. They have a hard time mentally wrapping the edges of the map around.

(Also, to them, the Atlantic Ocean is always in the middle, so next week I'll be having them label a map where the Pacific Ocean is in the middle, like so many of the maps I saw in Korea. I might even spring an "upside down" map on them.)

So we've cut out maps with twelve gores and put them together, and we've done origami to create a globe.

Today I gave the students outline maps of the continents and Styrofoam balls. "You're going to create your own globe," I said. "We're going for effort and attention to detail, not perfection."

Thirty minutes later, one of my students showed me his globe. "...and my South America sort of looks like a wolf with no eyes, no mouth, and no nose."