"Linking " Art and Math: 3 Minutes to Win It! Challenge

One cold and "wintry" November day at one of my schools, I was desparate for something to help my students work off their indoor recess energy, plus be creative.  I searched our school office supply room drawers. Aha!  Loose leaf rings.  (The kind used to link together hole-punched papers.)

What could I do?  Then it hit me:  Pattern chains, teamwork, challenge.  So, I gathered up 3 boxes of 1 inch; and 3 boxes of 1 1/2 inches rings.  (About 600 rings!) Then, the TV show, One Minute to Win popped into my head.  I'd do 3 Minutes to Win It! for this project. 

In the classroom, I drew a pattern on the whiteboard.  Students were instructed to begin their "pattern chain" with big, small, big, small, etc.  I demonstrated how to open the big ring, slide on the small one, close it up. Student only had to open the large rings.

Students each had a role in their teams.  Encourager, chain checker, opener(s) , linker(s), math person.  Students were told they had 3 minutes to complete the task. I'd let them know minute by minute and when 30 seconds remained. I dumped a mixture of big and small rings on the table.  Then I began timing. (Boy, those kids really worked hard to get it done.)

The encourager kept the team motivated, the chain checker made sure the team was creating the pattern correctly, the opener(s) opened the big rings, and the linkers linked individual chains together.   The math person was the one who would go to the whiteboard, add up (prove their answer) the sum of their chains inches in length. Any chain not in the correct sequence of big, small, etc. was automatically disqualified.  

We did 2 heats.  We wrote team math persons' names on the whiteboard and made a grid to keep track of each heat.  I used a yardstick to measure the chains. The math person kept track ie. 36 + 36+ 12. Then went to the board, added up their numbers, and wrote it in the grid for their team.

Teams then took apart their chains. Each of the rings had to be removed, closed and put back in the pile (this way there was no cheating.) The second heat was the sum we used for winners.  (However, if a team was disqualified in one heat, we used the qualifying heat sum.)  Winning team got a prize.

I took photos, and a newspaper article was created for our local newspaper.
The students learned teamwork, creativity, demonstrated adding quickly 2-3 numbers and proving their answer, had fun, and enjoyed the challenge.  I used this with 2nd graders, 3rd, 4th and 5th.  2nd graders chain length was 69 inches; 3rd was 99 inches; while 4th was 93; 5th was 139.
Here are photos.

3rd graders. He is handing her an opened ring

Chain checker making sure pattern is correct

I used this project at one other school and the students went wild!  The principal thought this was a great project! :-)