Fibonacci and an Algebra game

We have spent the last week exploring Fibonacci. As we love 'living math' we first turned to a couple of really good books,

 then we attempted to draw a Fibonacci spiral (much harder than it looks), we started by drawing the squares on a piece of graph paper (which turned into 3 stuck together) before attempting the spiral - it went wrong but rather than start again we came up with the great idea to cover in tracing paper to draw the spiral (which worked on the 3rd attempt).

We looked at the two spirals in a pine cone,

cut apples and lemons in half and explored the segments (they are both supposed to be Fibonacci numbers although our lemon was a freak and had nine segments not eight),

and attempted a modelling of the rabbit problem.

The girls were quick to point out that Fibonacci may have been a great mathematician but he wasn't a good biologist, in their words " if you tried to bread loads of rabbits from just two they would be sick and die from genetics".

We then explored the Golden ratio (if you divide a number in the Fibonacci sequence by the number immediately before it - i.e 21 divided by 13 - your answer is a number close to the golden ratio) and examples of the Golden Spiral in nature.

I also downloaded the 'Dragon Box' math app this week and I can't get the kids off it : )
If you haven't seen it then it definitely worth a look - it claims to secretly teach algebra to your kids. Mine are addicted and after playing it myself I can see why, it's simple to play and really does hammer home the process much better than a page of drills ever would.

I also read a great measurement book with Rose.

It has encouraged her to 'measuremeter' everything she could find this week : )