Des-blog

The snow has begun to fly in the land of the Friday Fave. A bit early perhaps, but it was due sooner or later. Plus, there’s an upside. Frozen water means less friction, which puts the Friday Fave in the mood for a good slalom.

If your precipitation isn’t frozen, or your skis are inaccessible, or the absolute values of the slopes in your nearby terrain are all too close to zero, then you’ll need to keep your slaloms electronic. Fortunately, the Friday Fave is here to help with that!

The Fave presents Parabola Slalom. Send a parabola through a series of gates. Any parabola that works counts, and creativity is encouraged.

As usual, things begin informally. Transform the parabola by moving some points around.

Soon, things become more formal. You have to define your parabola symbolically.

Eventually, we’re asking you to design your own slaloms. Can you design one that cannot be solved?

Simple entry to meaningful and challenging tasks. That’s what makes Parabola Slalom this week’s Friday Fave.

While you’re thinking about parabolas, maybe check out the following additional parabola-related activities.

FEATURED ACTIVITIES

Polygraph: Parabolas: Understanding (h,k)

Match My Parabola

What’s My Transformation?

There are times when we all just need to set our troubles aside and have a little fun.

At Desmos, that usually means math-based play, and if you’re the kind of person who’s into this kind of thing, the Friday Fave invites you to join the club.

While you will be playing golf in this week’s Fave, you will not need clubs. No, you’ll need to sink those putts with rotations, reflections, and translations in Transformation Golf: Rigid Motions.

You’ll find some of our challenges simple, and some of them quite difficult. Keep in mind that this all about fun. No one’s keeping score. Take all the mulligans you need.

Sure, the Fave could tell you about the Common Core standards that introduce congruence by way of rigid motions. Or about the importance of developing spatial visualization skills, or even about how breaking things down into discrete steps can support learner’s development of algorithmic thinking. And that’s all true! But sometimes you just want to play.

In that spirit, here’s a class code: TV67R.

Then when you’ve finished on the course for the day, check out these other activities on the Desmos math playground.

Polygraph: Hexagons

Marbleslides: Parabolas

Water Line

Look for and make use of structure. Supporting students in engaging in this mathematical practice is the major objective of this week’s Friday Fave.

In Match My Picture, we work first to create a need. When you’re writing equations for two lines, it’s just fine to think about the slopes and y-intercepts independently of each other.

When you’re writing equations for nine lines, it may start to get a bit tedious. Plus, you may start to notice that these lines have something in common. Not only that, but what is changing is changing in a predictable way. It’s y=-2x plus something.

Hopeful that you’ve noticed the structure, we invite you to capture that structure in symbols.

Finally, we show you how to capture it with our tools. We tell you about lists. We invite you to use your newfound structure-capturing powers to match more pictures, and to design your own structured decorative masterpiece.

Taking students from needing a structure, to representing it formally, to using it creatively—this is what makes Match My Picture a Friday Fave.

While you’re thinking about matching, have a look at these activities too:

FEATURED ACTIVITIES

Match My Line

Match My Parabola

Card Sort: Derivative Match