Introducing the Pythagorean Theorem - with STARBURSTS!

Another one of my favorite activities - so of course it must involve food :) I have done this introductory lesson every year for the last 5 years with my students, and I finally am getting around to blog about it! 

 

I start by having students create a right triangle with sides 3, 4, and 5. I introduce the vocabulary words leg & hypotenuse, and what sides are labeled a, b, and c. Then, I have students create squares out of the 3 sides. I tell them there is a special relationship between the squares, and leave them to figure it out! Sometimes I will have to prompt them by telling them that it has to do with the two smaller squares and the larger squares. After a couple minutes of playing around with the starbursts, usually a student can figure out that the two smaller square together create the larger square! 

I've also done this activity with linking cubes! Any small square object that you have a lot of would work great. You could even cut out squares from colored paper/card stock. 

I have had several other teachers on my campus ask me for details on this lesson, so I finally created a scaffolded worksheet to walk through each step of this lesson. It also has space for students to label the important parts of a right triangle, summarize the Pythagorean Theorem, and write down the formula. It is perfect for interactive notebooks! You can find it here or by clicking on the image below!