"Hi, Greg! Well, it happened. My class of 15 seventh graders and 5 sixth graders showed off their hinged creations to each other a week ago Friday AM, and then they decorated the room, transforming it into a mini-museum of dissections. We had a sign reading "Springtime Swingtime", a large dissection pattern on the ceiling, a demo "stained glass" dissection on one of the windows, a welcoming table with Dudeney's triangle-square in wood and Loyd's red heart and black spade and a backlit screen illuminated with the Cross-Crescent illustration reproduced from your first book!
"All this was set-up for a sixth grade class to come to play later! My students set out their projects on the lab benches and then left me to host the incoming class and its teacher. I had our computer aide photographing so that I could answer questions and schmooze. The visitors had a great time trying out stuff like - how 4 Greek crosses can hinge to make one large one, checking out a 2 square dissection with a human figure spanning the pieces, checking a T-slide, puzzling the stained glass, etc. I have attached various shots to give you the idea. There was a whole lot of excitement and curiosity in the air!
"Prior to all of this I spent three class periods going over tessellations which yield hinged dissections to problems with two different sized squares, using T-strips to find overlapping figures, making two equilateral triangles into one larger to show a different slant on the Pythag. theorem, and hinging some oaktag to demonstrate the possibilities of cyclic hinging.
"This little recreation provided some neat insights into tessellations, constructing irrational lengths - blah, blah. Anyway, thanks for providing support. I know I have one very thrilled seventh grade girl who clearly deserved the T-shirt award for creativity! She stood up on a chair to model the T-shirt, and the whole class yelled and cheered.
"Thanks again, and best wishes."
Kim Sharp
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| A title that Swings! |
Okay, guys, Mr. Sharp worked hard on this, so let's all look really, really interested. |
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Now that we have Spades and Hearts, can math Clubs be far behind? |
Hmmm... now how did this go? |
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| My Heavens! They're on the ceiling! | Yikes! We can't even stare out the window! |
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| Greek Crosses swing too. | Ten bright squares to one! |
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| Psst! Tell Mr. Sharp that these are Latin Crosses. |
... the hip bone connected to the ... No, wait! This is math class! |
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| Can this be ...? | On the square! |
Congratulations to Kim Sharp and his swinging class!
You've done a really great job!
- Greg Frederickson
Photos and description courtesy of Kim Sharp.
Captions (with apologies) by Greg Frederickson.
Last updated June 27, 2003.