I haven’t taught Conic Sections in many, many years. But even though it has been many years, I still remember how much students disliked them.
After hearing Cindy Johnson speak so enthusiastically at TMC14 about her Conic Cards, I knew I wanted to try them. Amy and Sarah had great success with the cards as well. So, I’m going all in. If you have tried them and have any suggestions for me, please throw them in the comments. I start Monday. I can’t wait to try them!
I had read from other bloggers how much time it takes to makes these cards. I thought I understood, but really had no idea until I started printing them out. It took for-ev-er. I also laminated them and then cut them out while watching a movie with the family. It took me over two hours to cut them out, and I only made five sets. (I’m at a private school so I only have 20 kids per class). Thank goodness for snow days.
The entire time I printed, laminated, and cut each page I just kept thinking, “I cannot believe that Cindy CREATED all of these cards!” And I can’t even imagine how long it took her to make them! So, thank you Cindy for your great work, but especially for being willing to share them with all of us! This is why I love the #MTBOS.
The entire set of Conic Cards including worksheets, a project, and even a test to go with them can be downloaded here. There are even two levels of worksheets, a standard and an advanced set.
I also plan to make Rice Crispie treat conic sections that we can cut apart, IF I have the time (soccer!). And no, I am not above bribing my HS students with food. Whatever it takes…
I Speak Math 
Hi Julie! I loved using the conic cards in Algebra 2. One thing I added in was the algebra; transforming equations into the correct form so you could find centers and such. I also gave my kids a page to take notes on – that was a big request after we finished it up the first year.
Have fun!
That’s a great suggestion! Thank you! Did you add the algebra in as you went along? Or after they had learned to recognize the equations by sorting?
Do they recognise the general form axx+byy+2dx+2ey+f=0 and how to get at the standard forms from it ? ( xx means x squared..)
I just did this gif for you, from one of the example data sets for my graphics program GEOSTRUCT. It also does “ellipse with centre and two points”, which to my stupid surprise produces a hyperbola sometimes!
The parabola has directrix x=0 and focus (1,0)
This is awesome! Thank you!
I did a post ages ago showing how to get a conic equation from a cone slice. The math is simple !
https://howardat58.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/what-they-didnt-tell-you-at-school-conic-sections-2/
I love this and am going to tweet it out!
Muchas gracias !
I spent about 10 minutes looking to see how to do the same for other conics -too messy – and then I though “Point made anyway!”.
Are you on Twitter? If so, what is your name?
Yes. The name is @Howard_at_28
I had to check!
Awesome. Thanks!
Muchas gracias again, I got 72 page views, usually 15 to 20 on a regular day.I think that several retweeted the link.