Create Pattern and Base 10 Blocks in Keynote

Don’t have pattern blocks or base 10 blocks in your classroom? No problem! Create your own virtual blocks in Keynote! You can also create these in Pages and Numbers, too! Would be a great way for students to illustrate their thinking by creating a book about their knowledge of numbers or math shapes in Pages and export as an ePub!

Pattern Blocks

Create pattern blocks with shapes. Did you know the green circle in a shape means you can manipulate the shape’s sides and thickness? Explore how selecting more than one shape will allow you to subtract parts of a shape to create a new one. The other feature I absolutely love is that when you are resizing a shape, you will see words like square and radius as well as the degree of an angle. This is great hands-on math exploration!

Base 10 Blocks

Create base 10 blocks with tables in Keynote. Copy/paste to create multiples and there you have hands on math for stations or any other math work while using iPad! This isn’t just for younger students, either! Students can demonstrate their knowledge of fractions and decimals by filling in cells in the base 10 blocks.

Here’s a how-to video to get you started:

Click HERE to download the Keynote deck with all of the shapes and base 10 blocks created for you to practice!

Happy creating!

Name Equations in Keynote

This project collides literacy and math in a way that allows students to express themselves creatively. When you have combinations like that, a lesson is sure to be a success.

This project takes students down a powerful path in understanding a program such as Keynote (traditionally only thought of for presentations). Here are some of the skills they will learn in this fun project:

• Inserting text to create name (change font, size, color, and alignment)
• Learn to organize and space items appropriate for proportion of slide size
• Align text and shapes (spacing and sizing are important for this!)
• Search through the shapes library to find shapes that begin with the letters of their first name (phonics in action)
• Add up how many shapes are in each letter column
• Create an equation based on the number of shapes in each column
• Change the background color of a slide
• Export each slide as an image (Mac) or take a screen shot of slide in full screen (iPad)
• Share!

Ways to share student creations:

• Have each student upload their image to a Padlet wall.
• Each student uses Airdrop to drop their image to one iPad and that one iPad can combine all to create an iMovie or Clips video with all of the class images.
• Each student can create a checkthis.com site where they upload their image and write about what each one of the shapes represents. When students are finished, they can publish their site and share their URL with their friends and families!

Each child’s creation will be different and students will interpret the shapes in different ways. It’s important to note that some shapes have multiple meanings and can start with various lettters. For example, in the creative piece below, Austin uses a fork for the word utencil under the letter U.

 

Teaching Students to Create Their Own Pixel Art!

Pixel art is all the rage thanks to old school video games and today’s gaming such as Minecraft. I thought a great way to reach my students is to have them create their own pixel art. It’s quite an intricate process and takes time and determination to complete. In this post, I’ll share the resources I used to teach my students about pixel art and how to create their own though a variety of ways! Be sure to scroll down to the bottom as I share three very important pieces to this overall lesson: History of pixel art, creating pixel art using a web tool, and creating pixel art from scratch using a spreadsheet called Numbers.

History of Pixel Art:

This was a great paragraph from Mary Winkler on an article she wrote explaining pixel art. “Considering that everything you are viewing on your monitor, tablet, or phone is comprised of many, many pixels, the often asked question is “how is this not pixel art?” It’s art, it’s made of pixels, so surely all digital art is pixel art. While technically correct, when talking about “pixel art”, we’re focused on a specific style of artwork most often employed within the gaming industry. Pixel art is a raster-based digital work that is created on a pixel-by-pixel level. Typically very small, the art form is similar to mosaics or cross-stitch in that it focuses on small pieces placed individually to create a larger piece of art.” Click here to view the full article.

Create Your Own Pixel Art Online:

I searched for the most student-friendly pixel art creator, and this is the one that I loved. I thought it had the most user-friendly platform and easy enough for young students to learn to create pixel art. I gave my students three prompts:

1. Recreate an image of a character, person, or thing.

2. Spell your name in pixel art.

3. Create your own pixel art.

Here’s some samples from some of my second grade students:

Another web tool option: http://makepixelart.com/free/

A fun way to pixelate a photo of yourself is here and the effect is called focal pixelate.

Create your own pixel art using Numbers or Excel:

If students can use a generator to create their art, why not teach them how to create their own graphs and plot their colors using a spreadsheet like Numbers or Excel? For this project, I used Numbers. This was a great extension for the younger students and an even better starter for the older students. It really introduces or reinforces commands, such as copy/paste and selecting more than one object to modify. Additionally, it takes the user through the process of adding and deleting cells as well as creating the cells in the shape of a square rather than a rectangle. I also thought that it took quite a bit of time for students to conceptualize what they wanted to create and make sure that they started in the center and had matching blocks on each side to create symmetry. There are many ways this could weave into an art lesson, a math lesson, or a creative lesson using technology.

Here’s a sample using Numbers from a third grader in one of my classes:

I’d love to see what you and your students create! Have fun!

An Oldie, but Awesome Math Goodie!

Math 3 Under the Sea

I’ve been using Math 3 Under the Sea, a web-based math program for many years with my students. It allows students in grades 2-4 (even 5th grade for extra practice) a wide variety of practice in many different areas in math. Students love that it is fun, interactive, and engaging. This site is created in Canada, so I always tell my students to NOT click on the “Counting Money” topic because in Canada they use a different currency. Other than that, some of the topics include number forms, place value, comparing and ordering numbers, addition, subtraction, multiplication & division, patterns, perimeter, time, shapes, and data analysis. This program is great for use in computer labs, extra math practice at home, or for whole group instruction on the Smart Board or Promethean Board. Another great feature of this site is that once you are in a lesson, you can view the teacher guide as well as a glossary of terms for each topic. Students have to master each topic to advance to another topic as they aim for the goal of unlocking a treasure. Super fun way to practice math skills.