Legos and High School Math

Yesterday, I wandered through Barnes and Nobel to check out the latest technology and stem kits they offer.  Right across the aisle, I saw row after row of Legos but they were kits to build things, not the plain blocks to use one's imagination.

I thought about purchasing a few to play with because I'd like to use them in class.  I already know how to use them to teach fractions but I wondered if they could be used in Algebra.  It was easier to find information on fractions, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division but I did find activities for using Legos in high school.

Colin Graham's blog has a list of 20 ways to use Legos as manipulatives in math showing the final result as a picture so you would have to figure out how to do it.  There are no instructions.  I found two that are applicable to the math I teach but most are for maths I do not do such as box fractals.

Some of the idea's I've come up with on my own:

1.  Squares and square roots for perfect squares such as 2 x 2 or 8 x 8.  Most of my students need the activities.

2.  Area - students come across problems which ask them to create as many ways as they can to develop a shape with a specific area such as 24 square feet. 

3.  Volume - students could build three dimensional figures to either figure out the best arrangement for say 108 cubic inches. 

4.  Edges, vertices, faces of cubes.  They could build their own shapes to identify the edges, vertices, and faces for certain shapes.  These could be used as they explain the concept in a video.

5. multiplication of binomials can be shown using legos.

6. Factoring of numbers for common denominators.

7. Adding, subtracting, multiplication and division of variables or exponents.  Many of my students do not visualize what these mean without some sort of manipulative.

8. Cubes and Cube roots - again students can build these using Legos as a way of visualizing this material.

9.  Scale Models - it isn't that hard to take one item and build another based on a scale model.

These are just a few ideas I have but I still have to find some Legos in town I can get to explore these on my own.  I see how to do them in my head but I have to play with them so I can write up the activity for them with the appropriate questions.

I'd love to hear if you have any ideas on this.  Let me know what you think.