It's all about polygons!!! (And an crocodile)

Hello to all my readers!

I will start if by talking about my wild adventures with the crocodiles.  Last Saturday half of our group set out to catch crocodiles with an organization here in Belize known as ACES.  They protect crocodiles and make sure their habitat stays safe.  We left Pedro's Inn around 6pm and hopped on a boat around 6:30pm and sailed out on the Carribean Ocean. We left right as the sun went down because it is easier to find a crocodile in the dark.  They use flashlights to scan across the water.  When they do this they are looking for an orange glow.  When a light hits a crocodiles eye in the night it glows back orange.  I was very excited until they spotted a crocodile and jumped in to catch it.  I instantly grew nervous but trusted that they knew what they were doing. Each time they jumped in to catch a croc the mood grew tenseon the boat.  Once they caught the croc we all cheered in excitement.  We even got lucky enough to name one.  We named him Squish because he had a really squishy belly.  Although the name is adorable having a squishy belly we learned was bad for a crocodile.  A soft belly means the crocodile is eating lots of trash.  Good thing we caught the little guy in time!  For all you animal lovers out there you will be happy to know Squish was safely relocated to a cleaner environment that is still within his habitat.  Not only did we get to see them catch crocodiles we also learned a lot about them and about their history here in Belize.

Just a little background knowledge before I talk about my lesson today.  Yesterday (April 9th) I taught my students all about polygons.  They learned what a polygon is as well as it's definition.  Once they understood the concept of a polygon, I moved on to teach them about the different types of polygons and how they get their names based on how many sides they have.

Today was all about polygons! I started my lesson by reviewing polygons.  After review time, I told the class we were going to make our own magic carpets! But not just any magic carpets.  These magic carpets were going to be designed with polygons.  The students were very excited. I gave them a few guidelines to follow: the carpet could only be decorate with polygons, they had to include more than one type of polygon, and the carpets must have some type of pattern.  All the of the magic polygon carpets came out fabulous.  After completing the carpets, I split the students up into groups of three and gave them a stack of cards.  I taught them how to play the memory card game and yes of course all the cards had polygons on them.  I simply used construction paper and markers to create the game. It took the students a few minutes to catch on how to play the memory game, but after a few minutes they were all very into it.  The game has some competition to it, so naturally the students began getting rowdy.  To bring the class together  in a calm way, I read to them "Hector the Tapir: A Geometry Story."  This book was written by two girls who were apart of the Belize trip in 2012: Bailey Elliot and Jessica Johnson.  All the pictures in the book are actual pictures of Belize.  I chose this book because it included several polygons and showed how polygons are out in the community.  The students were so excited when they recognized the pictures and knew those pictures were taken right in their community. 

After lunch ACES (the group that took us out Saturday night) came to Isla Bonita to show the students crocodiles and teach them about the importance of their safety.  The students absolutely loved it and asked so many great questions.

Tomorrow is beach blast for the primary school, and then the students 2 week Easter break begins and all of us will be traveling inland for a week to visit San Ignacio and Guatemala.  Also while we are inland we will take a day trip to the chocolate factory, go cave tubing, go snorkeling to explore life below sea level, tour the Myan Ruins and many other adventurous things.  So there will be many blogs and pictures of all our adventures to come!