The Harmony Learning Community Blog

News, Updates, Program Recaps, and Homeschooling Information

Getting Emotional about Pi

Posted by Rodi Steinig 
· Tuesday, March 11th, 2014 

(February 25, 2014)  Kids arrived to see some yarn and 3 different-sized cans on the table:  salt, coffee, and espresso.  I asked the kids to point out the key parts of a circle on the cans – the circumference, the area, the (invisible) center, and the rope/radius,1  and the diameter.  We hadn’t worked with diameter before, so we talked about…

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PROOFS #3: Irrational Numbers, Hippasus, and Visual Proofs

Posted by Rodi Steinig 
· Monday, May 6th, 2013 

(April 30, 2013)  As I entered the building, L, one of my Math Circle lurkers, asked excitedly, “Are you studying The Pythagorean theorem?”  I never erase the board work at the end of class so that L (and other building users) can study and think about it throughout the week.  L does not participate in our Circle, but follows it…

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PROOFS #2: Exponents, Roots, Pythagoras, Theorems, Proofs, and The Kaplans

Posted by Rodi Steinig 
· Tuesday, April 30th, 2013 

PROOFS #2:  Exponents, Roots, Pythagoras, Theorems, Proofs, and The Kaplans [juicebox gallery_id=”25″] (April  23, 2013) Before continuing our TV problem, the students recapped last session for A, who had been absent last week.  This week’s problem solving once again presented rich opportunities for delving deeply into arithmetic; it has not been the algebra and geometry that is challenging for these…

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PROOFS #1: Aspect Ratios, the Golden Ratio, and Z’s TV

Posted by Rodi Steinig 
· Monday, April 22nd, 2013 

PROOFS #1:  Aspect Ratios, the Golden Ratio, and Z’s TV (April 16, 2013) Your cousin has just gotten a new job as an announcer on the Golf Channel, and is so excited for you to watch every broadcast.  While you may enjoy playing golf, you don’t really enjoy watching it.  So you decide to place a small flat-screen TV between…

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