Who: J1 and J2
When: mid-afternoon when I am working
Where: in my home office
What: drawing pictures in larger scale using a grid copying technique
Why: build intuition for scaling as multiplication and distract them while I was busy
Background
I wrote about one plan to have the J's play with scaling through a collection of grid drawings here:
After getting that inspiration, I prepared several pages using pencilcode and some pre-grided pictures I found on the web. Then, I even went a step further and got an Asterix action shot and made it into a grid drawing:
How could the older J's not love it?
In play
At first, both J1 and J2 seemed interested. They asked me to print particular pictures, compared how many gridlines each had (some are 4x4 and others 5x5) and then asked me if I could find other pictures (leading me to put together the Asterix one).
From there, J1 made an attempt on the butterfly pattern, but I don't think J2 even made any progress on his.
Post mortem
Here are my ideas for why they didn't get into the activity:
(1) it was too hard
(2) they were distracted by something else
(3) I wasn't doing it along with them.
Sometimes, it is frustrating to spend time planning and organizing an activity for it to fizzle out. When it happens, though, I think it is important not to keep pushing the activity. Sometimes, it can be introduced again at a different time or place. Sometimes, in fact, they will ask about the activity on their own, helping to prove that often something goes in, even when they don't seem to be listening.
At first, both J1 and J2 seemed interested. They asked me to print particular pictures, compared how many gridlines each had (some are 4x4 and others 5x5) and then asked me if I could find other pictures (leading me to put together the Asterix one).
From there, J1 made an attempt on the butterfly pattern, but I don't think J2 even made any progress on his.
Post mortem
Here are my ideas for why they didn't get into the activity:
(1) it was too hard
(2) they were distracted by something else
(3) I wasn't doing it along with them.
Sometimes, it is frustrating to spend time planning and organizing an activity for it to fizzle out. When it happens, though, I think it is important not to keep pushing the activity. Sometimes, it can be introduced again at a different time or place. Sometimes, in fact, they will ask about the activity on their own, helping to prove that often something goes in, even when they don't seem to be listening.
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