Yesterday we had a really good talk about Pythagorean triples. My son struggled a little bit with the algebra, but I was happy to see that struggle since I think it represents what learning math really looks like. That post is here:
What Learning Math Often Looks Like
Today we talked a little more about Pythagorean triples during our normal school time and it seemed like it was time to move on to another topic. Luckily for me Kate Nowak had shared her thoughts on a great Five Triangles geometry problem yesterday evening:
Because of her post I didn’t have to think too hard about what problem to talk about next. My son worked for a little while and came up with a solution to the problem that had a small error. We discussed the error and I wanted to see if he would be able to talk about the error and how to modify his solution on camera.
I was happy to see him talk through that solution and followed up with a new question. That question gave him a little trouble, but just like yesterday that trouble turned out to be a good example of thinking about math. As I said in the first blog post, learning math isn’t always a straight line. I’m really happy to see (and share) these examples because I really think this is what learning and thinking about math looks like:
Mike's Math Page 