Math In Real Life! Vacation Geometry!

It’s the first Wednesday of April which means it’s time for our monthly linky – Math IS Real Life!!  If you want to see how the linky works, or just want other real world math ideas, check out our Pinterest Board of all the posts so that you can look back and find some great ideas and REAL pictures to use in your classroom!  
If you are linking up, please include the below picture AND a link back to all four of our blogs – feel free to use the 2nd image and the links listed below!
A monthly REAL WORLD math blog link-up hosted by
   ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
So…as some of you may have figured out, I spent the better part of last week on vacation at a beautiful resort in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.  I was thinking of all the ways that math was involved in our trip…

1.  Price!  Going at spring break is pricier–what is the cheapest week to visit?  What is the most expensive?

2.  Is an “all inclusive” resort a good deal?  How much would it have cost us to do it a different way?

3.  How many calories did I consume?  

4.  What was the average daily temperature?  (Too easy…80, 82, 81, 82, 80)

None of these seemed worthy, but my mind kept going back to a post that a dear friend, Miss Math Dork, wrote a few weeks back about the geometric images she saw on a trip to Washington D.C. and I knew I had nailed it. I asked for her permission to use her idea and she graciously agreed.  Interested in some of her amazing pics from DC?  Check out her blog post here!

As for me…the more we walked around, the more geometry I saw!  Wouldn’t it be a great way for students to look at your classroom/school/playground through a new lens?  Take the iPads or cameras on a tour and see what they can see!  I’m going to try it with mine when we dig deeper into geometry coming soon!

Squares…patterns…prisms…oh my!

Star or decagon?
Concentric circles!  Check out how that railing could show the approximate radius if you had a birds’ eye view!
Nifty examples of both reflection, quadrangles, and trapezoids!
Intersecting lines, tesselations, and more!
Parallel lines of beach chairs!
Beautiful view out geometric windows

Check out the decorative spheres tucked away inside a trapezoid shaped opening!
I’m looking forward to working on some great geometry sorts in the next weeks…so stay tuned.  Make sure to stop by the other blogs to see THEIR Real Life Math posts–and if you are a blogger, try to join us next month!  The link up is so easy!  Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

   ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Meg