Making math make sense
ROYAL CITY — Denise Mirich, a teacher at Royal Intermediate School has come up with a fun way for her students to learn an often times difficult and boring subject, but one that is an essential life skill. Her 6th grade students are hard at work making sense of math through the construction of piñatas.
“Piñatas are very popular for celebrations — many of our students’ cultural heritages involve the breaking of a piñata at almost every festive occasion,” Mirich said. “Piñatas are fun and magical when creating and breaking them, so this summer as a culminating project, we combined our math and piñata making skills.”
The 6th grade math geometry strand focused on creating nets from a rectangular prism and calculating the surface area of that prism.
“A rectangular prism is like a box and a net is a flattened out three-dimensional figure,” Mirich said. “The students had to think about the piñata they wanted to create that had a rectangular shape and find a box to use for their calculations. Then they used butcher paper to create four unique nets by rolling their box and tracing the flattened figure so when the nets are cut out, they would form the rectangular prism.”
Next the students measured the nets to find the length, width, and height.
“As they were measuring, they soon figured out they only needed to have these three measurements to label all of the edges of their net,” Mirich said. “With these measurements, the students were able to calculate the surface area. Finding the surface area was really important because it would give them the amount of paper squares needed to complete their piñata.”
The surface area was calculated in centimeters because each square, when glued, covered approximately one square centimeter. When the math was completed the students were ready to paper mache their boxes.
“Some students were very familiar with this process and showed others how to apply the moistened newspaper strips and cover their figures,” Mirich said. “Once dry, they began to outline their creations.”
On Friday, June 9 parents were invited to view the finished products. The designs ranged from animals, such as a horse, pig, and cat, to minions, sports teams, and the flag of Mexico.
“They were very creative and took pride in their work,” Mirich said. “Many of the students claimed they will not be breaking their piñata because of how much work they put into it. Others are giving their piñata as gifts to very special people.”