Tower Activity

I decided to complete the tower activity assignment with my after-school tutor group. I must say, it was a big success. Every time I see my students in the hallway, they want to know when we are going to make more towers. I have cube sets that are similar to the unifix cubes so I was able to create several sets for the class. I split the students up into four groups of four. After explaining the goal of the activity, I sat back and watched. Every group immediately created an all brown tower and an all blue tower, or whichever two colors they had. Each group then proceeded to create towers that were split half and half. I found it interesting that each group had the same or similar thought process up to this point. Once the half and half towers were created, the groups proceeded in different direction. Two groups caught onto the opposite or pairing approach almost immediately while other did a type of trial and error. The groups that used trial and error created random tower combinations and checked to see if they already had a tower that looked the same. The students that utilized what they referred to as the "pairing" approach created all of the possible towers faster than the students who used trial and error. After completing the activity I asked my students how many spots there were in each tower, how many options or colors there were for each spot, and how many total combinations there were. I was shocked with how quickly they caught on. My students quickly came up with various equations that they thought would explain the total number of combinations. We soon moved onto five story tower but were unable to complete the task because we ran out of time. I have scheduled time for the students to complete their towers this upcoming Wednesday. I am anxious to see how it goes.