A palindrome is a sequence (letter, symbol, number, etc.) that is the same forward and backwards such as wow, Ava or 3,003. This week we did some investigating into palindromes and discovered some really cool things (numbers are really amazing!). The kids enjoyed the project so much that they were disappointed when I told them we had to stop math and go to PE.
We investigated numbers 10 - 99. Some of those numbers (22, 55, 88, etc.) were already palindromes, but most numbers were not. However, if you add the reverse of a number, you can find a palindrome. For example: 13 is not a palindrome, but 13 + 31 = 44 which is a palindrome. That took one step or one addition problem to get to a palindrome. Some numbers took more steps, like 37: 37 + 73 = 110; 110 + 011 = 121 which is a palindrome.
The students worked together in groups to work out the palindromes, but they soon found patterns and did not have to actually solve each problem.
The kids noticed some pretty spectacular patterns when looking at the color-coded chart and the palindrome chart. Ask a fourth grader to tell you more about some of the patterns he/she noticed!
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