Unit Circle Fun

The very first day of school I told my Calculus class that they had to memorize the unit circle. There was approximately 0% enthusiasm following the announcement... I wasn't surprised, but I followed that announcement by giving them their first assignment, an artistic representation of the unit circle. I found the assignment through another blog,
http://secondarymissrudolph.blogspot.ca/2014/07/unit-circle-art.html?m=1.
Be sure to check it out. She has many other awesome resources and ideas to share. I wasn't sure what to expect - her students made some pretty amazing things. After morning meetings at school today, I found two projects already sitting on my desk. And they were phenomenal. Each and every student (ok, all seven of them) made something beautiful! My description wouldn't do them justice, so here are some photos.

Here you will see the unit circle drawn on the belly of a pig. Pretty cute if you ask me!

One student chose to make hers out of the sun - placing the (cos,sin) coordinate points on the rays.

Of course we had to have a minion with a unit circle eyeball!

Monsters Inc anyone?!?

You can't see this one very well, but this student made a playground merry go round that actually spins!

Hand drawn airplane with the unit circle on two propellers.

This one blew my mind as well. The hearts around the edge actually pull out to reveal the (cos, sin) coordinate points. How cool is that?!? 

Safe to say AP Calculus is starting off with a bang! I absolutely love my job and being able to see just what my students are capable of doing. Hopefully more posts to come with more ideas for the secondary math classroom!