fractal hell

we’ve been working on making a cotter ten fractal for maeve’s latest math lesson (yes, that link takes you to someone who’s using the same curriculum, apparently, because that’s exactly what we’re working on)…and according to the book this should take “2-3 days”….well, i think they might have meant if you got a group to help you…since they recommend this is a good project to do in a group…well its taking FOREVER! ay yi yi! we get sidetracked and don’t get back to it for a couple days and then we get fed up with the gluing after just a few of the ten triangles.

well, the idea is this…you print up a bunch of pages of these little triangles…those are the ones. then you use 10 of those little triangles to build a 10s triangle…then guess what… 10 of the 10s triangles to build a 100 triangle. then, yup, you guessed it…10 of the 100 triangles to build the 1000 triangle!

adam thinks this project is pointless…but i get the point…its a way to get the kids hands-on experience with groups of 10 and building the next larger number…it makes sense…too bad its taking so friggin long to build!

luckily, adam brought home a ream of pink paper he got from his dad the other day so i am using the pink paper for the 10 triangle form (to glue 10 of the little white triangles on it…there’s space in between them) and then today we went to GW school supply and got butcher paper by the yard…i calculated we would need 2 and a half yards to make the 10 hundred triangles we will need to make to build the thousand triangle. so i bought 3 yards for leeway. cost me under $3 because it was only .99 a yard, and i get a teacher discount (gotta love some homeschooling perks!)  pretty cool dealio, methinks.

now we just have to get the damn things finished! sheesh! we have to make 100 of the 10 triangles! and we only have 26 so far! sigh  its gonna be cool once its done, though.

i just don’t know where we have a wall big enough to put this up on. maybe in maeven’s room, if i move some stuff around.

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