I found Sarah Chase's activity of dancing prime numbers (I feel like that's an oversimplification) to be really intriguing but I don't have the coordination to try it myself. I'd love to get some of the dancing students in my class up trying something like that though to demonstrate a different understanding of number and patterns. I tried a similar activity with my wife and have not recorded us doing it yet but we've made a few attempts.
Activity: Two partners clap on multiples of two different numbers, creating a rhythmic pattern. For simplicity sake, one partner claps on multiples of 3 and the other on multiples of 2. We experimented with multiples of various numbers and observed how it affected the complexity and rhythm of the clapping pattern.
We talked about the mathematical patterns created by different pairs of numbers and discussed why certain pairs produced different rhythms.
Possible extension: Explore the impact of using prime numbers between 7 and 23 in the clapping activity and see how that influences the regularity or irregularity of the pattern.
Another possible extension: Collaborate with the music teacher to explore a cross-disciplinary connection with playing notes or some other way of finding common multiples by playing chords.
One more: Connect the clapping activity to traditional mathematical notation, with an effort to link the physical and abstract elements of the concept.
As we are just wrapping up some of our work on primes/multiples/factors now, I feel like this is a perfect time to try some of these specific movement activities with my class. So far they have been very receptive to my ideas and have engaged thoughtfully with them!
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