MTV Cribs Math and Art Lesson.

This week in class we are learning scale.  We connect it to MTV Cribs since they love celebrities and all their rich stuff.  The kids really enjoy it and it is a fun way to learn and apply scale.  The links for each day show the Google presentation I used in class.

Monday = Intro to scale and practice, teased we would be designing our own "Crib".

Monday we learned scale, watched some interesting videos, and I created scale problems that fit what we were learning.  They love watching videos.  We did this in partners so the kids could talk out their thoughts.

Wednesday = Design and review.

I let them know that on Wednesday we would be designing our "Crib".  Their faces lit up.  We watched an MTV Cribs episode to give them some ideas. We used the website called Floorplanner.  I don't even mess with teaching them how to use these websites.  I just let them discover and ask questions.  Some kids come in with amazing houses already built.  I let them work for 4 - 5 minutes designing then they did a review problem.  As soon as the problem is correct, they get to go back to designing.  This really motivates them to be quick and efficient, something we focus on a lot in my class.

Friday = Scaled down our rooms.

How this works is for math they design their house and we scale down the measurements for our art teacher.  She then takes those measurements and has the kids build their bedrooms and connects it to her standards.  We have done this now for three years and the kids are really excited because as 6th graders they remembered seeing them sitting around the art room.  I honestly never thought when I started teaching that I would be showing MTV Cribs in my math class.  It's not my thing, but it's not about me.  It's about them and what they like.  Our job as teachers is to find a way to connect our subject to their lives, even if it means watching MTV.