MPM2D - Day 11: Quiz + Cup Stacking Systems (day 2)

Today started with a quiz on what we have done so far with quadratics. While making the quiz yesterday, I was searching Fawn's fabulous visual patterns site for a good quadratic pattern, but was having trouble finding one that would not be too trivial for my students. I didn't want the pattern to just be the step size multiplied by the step size plus 1 or doubled. I had a little epiphany when I realized that if I found a pattern that I liked, I could offset the step number (step 2 becomes step 1, step 3 becomes step 2, and so on) and make the pattern just that little bit more challenging. Probably obvious to everyone else, but it was a happy moment in my day.

Update: here is the quiz.

I told my students that they could take as much time as they needed for the quiz as I don't want them to get stressed out about having to do math quickly. When they finished, they handed in the quiz and worked on their stacking cup systems graphs from yesterday. Once they solved the system graphically, which took more than one attempt for many as their scale did not allow them to see the solution, I wanted them to think about how to solve it algebraically. Unfortunately, many did not relish the idea of graphing so that ended up being assigned as homework, if it had not been completed in class. We did talk about the equations representing the height of the cups and what purpose graphing the relationships will serve.

Here is today's homework set (they only have to work on the first side tonight).