Patterns, Puzzles and Poirot

 Patterns, Puzzles and Poirot

Teaching basic operations in Math for the 5th graders

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Pascal’s Triangle

Eye rolls, disappointment, frustration and just plain anger greeted me from the bunch of cute 10 year olds when I announced that I was planning to revise the basic operations in Math before jumping on to the “new” stuff! Indubitably, it was followed by choice words to suggest that academics in Middle School needed a makeover, intense discussions on how life in Middle School would be boring if they had to practice addition, subtraction, multiplication and Division, yet again, for crying out loud!

Nervously, without facing the frustrated faces- some of which were buried deep into their palms, I start out writing the first six lines of the Pascal’s Triangle on the board, thinking of the ways I could explain to help them crack the pattern by which it was created.

“Use your little gray cells, mon ami!” Poirot intonates from somewhere within.

I just stare back at their hushed faces after adding a few extra rows without filling any numbers in it. I could see a sudden change in their attitudes. Curiosity? Bewilderment? Do I detect a wee bit of interest? Aha, Welcome to Middle School! ☺. I let the silence engulf them, rather than giving them instructions or asking questions. Within a few precious seconds, I am bombarded with queries, concerns and even skepticism. I deliberately, yet with a lot of restraint, hold myself from helping them out, keeping up my blank stare. 

Few minutes later, one child sweetly volunteers with “There seems to be an icing made of ones. I think a 1 comes in the first slot of the row and in the last.” Dancing to the music in my ears, I fill in the slots with ones. 

“I can see the numbers written slantingly in the increasing order, right after the ones.” “Yes!” I spout out, with more enthusiasm than I had intended to display. 

With a little more time, lot more discussions amongst the little ones on the justification of the correctness of the patterns by which to fill a slot, (along with enormous amounts of self-control on my part to keep away from interrupting their train of thoughts and flow of ideas with my own questions and theories), we had observed interesting patterns by which to fill in the Triangle. 

“Oh, yes, I am. Very odd. That is to say, I am methodical, orderly and logical, and I do not like to distort facts to support a theory.” Poirot continues.

The pencil scratching on paper doing some addition and subtractions, constant hum of the multiplication tables, long division to verify to see if the answer fits and the curses to find that it doesn’t but going through the process yet again because of the helpful voice of a friend providing an alternate hypothesis- all the sweet sounds of investigations that a Math teacher wants in her class! Chaos and confusion reigned, of course, but with a singular motive of filling the slots with the right number. Complicated patterns spanning over two different rows were discovered, with the repeated use of all of the basic operations. 

“Bored? Pas du tout, Mademoiselle. There does not need to be present a crime for the investigator to thrive, non. Pas.” Poirot happily chirps.

Encouraging them to do an assembly presentation on the patterns they found in the Pascal’s Triangle set out a new wave of inquiry and exploration, much to my contentment. Next stop, Fibonacci Series.