▲ Understanding Pythagoras ▲

Hi! 

Today, we are going to talk about Pythagoras and his famous theorem. He was a very intelligent man! Thanks to him, Maths, Philosophy, and also Geometry, experimented important progress. It is a figure that we can introduce to our students so they investigate a bit about who he was.

When we were at school, teachers usually asked us to memorise Pythagora's theorem, which we all know: the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. 

And nowadays, we still ask students to do thousands of problems using the formula, without even understanding it... and that's so boring! They do not know why they are using that equation again and again.

So... how can we teach students what it really means? How can children SEE with their own eyes what that formula tells us? Well, you may know this, but these videos have been a total discovery for me:

Just using three containers and playing with water, and using volume to help us, we can see how the water that contains the square of the hypotenuse is the same water that the two other sides' squares need to be full of water. I have always had problems understanding Pythagoras but watching this method was so helpful for me, because it is so visual that just by watching it you understand the theorem. In class, the teacher can try to design a similar mechanism to this one, so children can play with it and think about what connection it has with the theorem. Maths is something so abstract that we need to find ways to make it visual and manipulative.

I hope that you find this idea interesting for you. I will definitely put it into practice if I teach Maths someday!

XOXO,

Bea.