Fibs in Math Class

To celebrate Poetry Month and collaborate with my team's English teacher, Mrs. Dizazzo, we wrote Fibs in math class. 

I am not sure when I learned about Fibs, however, a simple Google search will bring up several bits of information such as the New York Times article, 
Fibonacci Poems Multiply on the Web After Blog's Invitation
by Motoko Rich and The Fib Review. 

In general, a mathematical fib is a poem where the number of syllables in each line corresponds to the Fibonacci sequence. For example, the first line contains one syllable word.  The second line also contains a one syllable word.  Line three contains two syllables which can be made from one word or more.  Line four contains three syllables, line five contains eight syllables, line six contains 13 and so the sequence continues.  

Here is a student example from this year.....

Notice the number of syllables in each line of the fib follows the Fibonacci sequence of 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, and 13. This student could have continued but writing a poem in this sequence is not as easy as it may seem.  Try for yourself:)

Here is a series of other Fibs written by my 2013-2014 seventh graders.

Brain Dumps in Class

We are melding all of our knowledge about slope.  This is worrying at times because there is so much to relate.  Will the students remember?  Can they make the connections?  Can they relate?

Today they did their first "brain dump."  I started off with simply listing two coordinate pairs of (4, 5) and (10, 8).  I then closed my eyes and asked students to write.  This is what they came up with.....