Reasoning

The Slinky Task – FAQs

The Slinky Task was dropped a couple of weeks ago and I’ve spoken to a number of people who had a lot of questions about it, so I’ve added some interesting facts (FAQs) about this task below. Enjoy.

  • How did you come up with this idea for the task? I was at a nearby school last fall working with one of the teachers there and a friend of mine, who also works there, mentioned that some students were eating lunch in her room and one of the boys was playing with a slinky that she had. He actually said, I wonder how far this slinky will stretch. She said she immediately thought of me. And then I showed up the next day. It did take me a couple of months to figure out how I wanted to do Act 1.
  • How long did it take to straighten the slinky? The initial straightening (what you see in the beginning of the Act 3 video) took about 45 minutes and the slinky still had a lot of fairly sharp bends in it (see below) . It also gave me several blisters on my thumbs and a couple of fingers. Lesson learned: Wear gloves.
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  • So, how long to straighten the slinky after that? It took about 18 hours. I worked at it for about 2 hours a day, when I could. There was a huge learning curve involved. I made several mistakes that added to the time needed to get this done. It was tedious, but with music playing in the background, it was fine.
  • What tools did you use to get the slinky straightened? As I mentioned, there was a huge learning curve. Some of the suggestions I got from Google searches actually prolonged the work, so I eventually just clamped the slinky in a vise and used pliers and vise-grips to bend it a couple of inches at a time.
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  • Any surprises? Yes. The slinky actually snapped three times as I straightened it. This was not good, but I did come up with a way to hide this in the Act 3 video. I clamped the slinky to the measuring tape using vise grips in multiple places to keep it aligned. Those vise grips are strategically placed to hold (and hide) where the slinky broke.
  • Did anything else not work out the way you thought or hoped? Yes. After I straightened the slinky, I asked my son to help me get it measured. We got it clamped and everything was set, but the measurement wasn’t even close – I think it was about 2 feet off from what I had computed the length should be. I kept thinking that I didn’t straighten the slinky enough, so I kept trying to get more of the bends out. I wasn’t going to even share this task – even after all the time I spent on it – because the numbers just weren’t even close to the real world measurements. Then it occurred to me that maybe my reasoning and computation was wrong. I was so close to this. Maybe I wasn’t seeing something that I needed to see. So, I sent the unfinished task and my mathematical thinking to some math friends and colleagues. I thought some fresh eyes (and minds) might be able to see what I couldn’t. The next morning, I got an email back from @KCwetna, with just the right amount of wondering that helped me reason through my own thinking to find the mistake. And, this mistake she provided me with is now included as a part of the task. It introduces another level of thought for students as they engage in the task – all based on the wonders she shared. Brilliant! So, essentially, my mistake ended up making this whole task better with some help from my friends.
  • What’s next? When the idea for this task was shared with me, I initially thought about doing this for slinky jr and the giant slinky. As of right now, those are on the back burner, but would be great sequels to explore and they are suggested at the end of The Slinky Task. I do have the slinkies for these tasks, but haven’t started the sequels yet.

Hubbub

A partner game for developing student flexibility with number combinations to five and ten (or even 20) that has connections to the first Thanksgiving.

If you teach Kindergarten, this post (and game) is for you! Ok, 1st Grade teachers can use this too, in the beginning of the year, or with more ten frames.

I can’t believe I haven’t written a post about this. I learned about Hubbub about 17 years ago, when I was just starting as a math coach in my district. I heard in mentioned in a video that some Kindergarten students were watching to learn about the first Thanksgiving. Apparently, children played Hubbub at the first Thanksgiving. I jotted down the rules and added a double ten-frame as a score board.

Materials needed:

  • 5 two-color counters per pair of students
  • Double ten-frames (one per pair) (one per student, if working on composing numbers to 20)
  • Cubes (10 per student) (20 per student if each child has a double ten-frame)

Rules:

  1. The object of the game is to score 10 points (or 20 points if you use a double ten-frame for each student).
  2. Players alternate shaking and spilling the 5 two-color counters. A player continues their turn (shaking and spilling counters to earn points) until they shake and spill 4 counters of one color and 1 counter of another color.
  3. Points are scored according to how the two-color counters land (see scoring sheet linked below):
    • If the counters show 3 of one color and 2 of another color, the player earns 1 point.
    • If all five counters show the same color, the player earns 2 points.
    • If the counters show 4 of one color and 1 of another color, the counters get passed to your partner.
  4. Players keep score by placing cubes on a ten-frame for each point earned. Players never lose the points they earn.

Teaching the Game

This is a partner game. I always model this game with the teacher on the carpet and we talk about the rules of the game, how to toss the counters, and good sportsmanship.

I sometimes use same-different images as an opener to this game. The slides for these can be found below, along with my lesson notes (standards included).

I introduce the two-color counters and then I shake them in my hands and gently drop them on the carpet. The counters will show one of six combinations:

As you can see, the possibilities are grouped by combinations to five (3 yellow and 2 red or 3 red and 2 yellow, etc.)

These combinations have scores/ consequences associated with them.

As we model the game, each time a new combination shows up, we discuss what happens. The scores and consequences for each pair of combinations is shown below.

A player’s turn only ends if they roll 4 of one color and 1 of another color. This is important, because most games we play with students, players each take one turn after each roll. We continue to model playing the game discussing good sportsmanship and asking questions, like “How many more do I need to get to 10?” “How many points do you have?” “Who has more points?”.

When someone wins – almost always not me – we ask the students if they are ready to play. The teachers pair the students with their partners, and we give them their materials. Students then begin to play and we monitor, asking students questions about combinations to five and 10 as they play. Students get very excited and, since we model it, we often hear students who do not “win” say, “That was a good game, would you like to play again?”

Hubbub Materials

If you use this game, please share your experiences. I’d love to hear about your students’ experiences and how you may have changed the game to suit your students’ needs.

Full disclosure here – I never won this game (17 years of playing) until last week when I went to my wife’s school to teach this to each of the Kindergarten classes before Thanksgiving break. They took a picture because it was the first time I ever won!