Special Quadrilaterals

We've just finished our unit on special quadrilaterals, and before our test, I thought I would try to drill home the value of marking up your figure with pertinent information to help you solve problems. I also made them cover up their previous attempts with jokes about their wandering eye that may do them harm. I decided to do it in a "race" type format.

I wanted the kids to compete against themselves and make progress between attempts, so I said that they would be timing themselves and grading themselves and being consistent with how they marked mistakes.

I put an online timer on my computer and the document camera (this one was nice). I just set the start time for 0 and end time for 2 minutes just in case.

At each attempt, in one color, the student was to mark up the figure with useful/correct markings that represented the figure. I reminded them to QUIETLY lay down their pencils at the end (by being goofy and demonstrating the jerky contestant who makes tons of noise at the end). Then when everyone was done (all eyes up), we graded in a different color. We did 3 attempts for each shape, and I kept asking for hand raised if they made improvement. I said they could do the 4th attempt on the night before the test.

Helpful? Don't know, but it was a chance to drive home the importance of marking and knowing the properties.

Here's the document: