Math Educator T-Shirt Design

Did you know that the Guinness World Record for 'most t-shirts worn at once' is 257 t-shirts! Wow! I think the most tees I've layered on is 3 and that was two too many.

You might remember this image from last week on my FB page. The project that I was working on is a t-shirt design!

I have the privilege to work with 29 educators who love math just like me! So, I thought it would be fun to have a t-shirt that represented the group. I started with asking all of them which color they thought would best represent them. I took all of those colors and put them on little squares.

You can see from the graph that over two-thirds of the math educators love cool colors. Almost one-third of them picked green!

Since I had 30 squares (including me) I decided to go with a 5 x 6 area model. I wanted 5 rows of squares with 6 squares in each row. I arranged and rearranged and rearranged about 30 times more than I thought I would, but it was worth it.

This arrangement was pretty close to the final design. Once I had discovered the pattern I loved it was time to draft it on the computer. I guess I could have just started with the computer but some things I just need to do hands on!

Front 

 Back

I think this shirt is awesome for a couple of reasons. 

1. It has an area model. This representation is very useful in helping children (and adults) learn about all kinds of math concepts.

2. There are multiple responses to the question, "What is the question?" Even a kindergarten student could come up with something. If you are a teacher, ask your students...see what they say!

All in all, I'm pumped to wear this shirt! I'm going to record every question that people come up with in my journal! This should not be a surprise to those of you that know me. You could help me get started on my list by commenting below...

Yay! Thanks for reading! :)