Friday, August 1, 2014

Headbands (Hedbandz) for the classroom

Made4Math...on a Friday!
 
It's kind of funny to me that "Hedbandz" ever became a game that people pay for since I remember playing it years ago with a Post-it stuck to each player's forehead.  I suppose the lack of set-up time and ability to reuse the cards gives it some worth.

If you're not familiar with the game, each player has a mystery card that they're trying to guess by asking the other players yes/no questions.  You win by guessing your card correctly with the least number of questions. 

If you look around the internet, there are plenty of teachers who are using this game in their classrooms.  MaryJennifer, and Sam have high school math versions.  For the past couple of months, ever since we played the real version at youth group, I've been looking for something to inexpensively replicate the reusable headbands.  I knew I could use strips of construction paper, but they would have to be replaced each time we played the game.  I thought about stretchy elastic headbands but thought they might be really uncomfortable.  I almost got cheap sunglasses and put Velcro dots on the bridges but decided I didn't want to have to Velcro each set of cards, nor did I want to invest $30 for this game.  I kept cruising Dollar Tree for ideas.  Yesterday, I happened upon 3 packs of foam visors. 

This has to be the simplest #Made4Math ever.  Take a visor, add a paper clip and a card, and you're good to go!  $10 for a class set is within my budget.  Totally dorky?  Yes, and I think that's probably part of the charm.  If the students wear them like visors are supposed the be worn, the taller students are going to have to tilt their heads down so the shorter students can see the cards.  Better is to wear the visors upside down (think "tiara") and the cards will be almost vertical. Similar visors are on Amazon here

A silly mock-up, but you get the idea.


I know I'll use this for several topics in math and in French.  Two sets of cards are in the document below, one for graphing linear equations and one for vocabulary related to functions and equations. 



How could you use this game with your students?

Mathematically yours,
Miss B

3 comments:

  1. Great idea Kathryn! I was sort of late in the game, as the first time I ran into this game was with Sam Shah recent post with graphs of rational functions. I'm definitely adding this one to my toolkit. Plus, I'm loving those visors. Practical and reusable!

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  2. Ooh, I can't wait to see my kids walking around with these on! Very clever idea!

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  3. So what would be the objective here? To write the equations? Find the slope? What kind of questions are you envisioning?

    I'm wondering if you did things like, what's the slope? What's the Y-Intercept? Or do you just do yes and no? Just trying to come up with new things! Thank you!

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