Locus Activity

Last week I did an activity with my students that they loved.  It has been rare for me to conduct activities with them because of the short amount of time we have to learn the curriculum before the Regents.  I'm so excited for this to change next year.  (Unfortunately, it appears as though locus is being removed from the curriculum anyway.)

My activity was exploring the five locus theorems.  I purchased two "medium" bags of m&ms, and had more than enough.  I have 65 students and gave each 8 m&ms.  I put the m&ms in a little Dixie cup so they had a place to keep them between setting up for each theorem (and to keep the m&ms from rolling around the desks and onto the floors). Each student was given a worksheet with diagrams of the locus givens.  (Get the worksheet here.)  They used the m&ms as points and arranged them to find the points that work for each locus theorem.  Once they had the right ideas, I had them remove the m&ms and draw the dotted lines on their worksheets.  When they had all five locus theorems correct, they were rewarded with m&ms.