Activator Lessons

The blog I began following uses activators to begin lessons.  He uses real life situations and quick little stories to open a lesson.  For the lesson on reflections, he began with a story about his daughter.  She was observing the reflection of her cup in the glass kitchen table and asked her father why the reflection is upside down.  He thought this was a great question and used it to open his lesson.  He began the rotation lesson with a picture of a manhole cover that had not been placed the correct way because the yellow lines were not matching up.  He was going to ask his students how a rotation would fix the problem and how many degrees it would need to be.  I really like the idea of using activators to begin a lesson because it takes something students are familiar with and relates it to something in math that they may not be familiar with yet. 

http://thegeometryteacher.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/truly-wonderful-the-mind-of-a-child-is/

http://thegeometryteacher.wordpress.com/2013/08/24/circles-from-cedar-street/