The Nueva School's Innovative Learning Conference

In this workshop we will create a mathematically and visually stimulating hands-on environment in which participants will discover and create polygonal numbers using interlinking colored blocks. The approach is inspired by the teachings of Pythagoras and his followers, who used pebbles to turn number sequences into geometrical patterns. The interplay between numbers and geometry will give rise to questions and potential solutions, which can be transferable to the participants’ own students in a similar setting. Number theory is the exploration of the properties of numbers. When we arrange whole numbers with manipulatives, the properties of numbers and the geometrical relations between them become visual. This aspect of numbers can naturally be accessed by students irrespective of their previous mathematical experience or approach to numbers. It allows for an originality of creativity that a pure paper-and-pencil setting would not afford.