Welcome teachers!

While the Box is designed to be student-led, we have some advice based on our own experience of running this activity with many groups of people over the years, as well as some tips from other teachers who have used the Box.

• Talk about the theory of fractals before beginning the craft activity (and before handing out the craft materials). Once students start building the Menger sponge, it can be hard to re-capture their attention. The Zine features an easy to understand introduction to fractals, starting on page 6.

• Pose some questions about fractals and the sculpture they are building before they start the construction process. The Zine has some example questions on page 17 to get you started. There are also some reflection exercises on pages 36-38 to keep students thinking during and after the craft activity.

• If you choose to explore the reflection exercises on pages 36-38, you could comfortably spend two or more hours on the task. The first hour could focus on an introduction to fractals and building the sculpture, and the second hour on engaging with the exercises.

• When engaging with the reflection exercises, it will help if students have their completed Level 1 sculpture in front of them for reference.

We designed the Box to be flexible for use in classes of different sizes. The craft activity is well-suited to group work, and in fact we recommend that within a class, small groups share a Zine and work together to build a Level 1 Menger sponge and explore the world of fractals by working through the Zine exercises. In our pilot project, we know of at least one teacher who used a single Box in a class of 60 students with three students sharing a Zine and collaboratively building a Level 1 Menger sponge. Another teacher was able to spread one Box over multiple classes because the Zines are reusable and the craft supplies can be divided between classes. We would love to hear of your experiences using the Box with classes of different sizes, so please email us at box@mathscraftnz.org.

Although not common, there are a few reasons why students may not want to try the activity. Here are some issues that we have encountered and suggestions on how to address them:

• "I'm no good at craft/folding." This activity is designed to be entry-level and accessible to all! Often students find that they are better than they thought at folding and/or rapidly improve after a bit of practice. Additionally, the online videos offer students a few extra tips for folding accurately. Best of all, folds don't need to be perfect! The odd wobble here and there will not affect your sponge. And for those inevitable mistakes, we have included extra cards and cladding.

• "It's not the maths I'm used to." Sometimes students who are already doing well in mathematics can find this new approach daunting. Reassuring them that it is "real" and "serious" mathematics can help to alleviate their concerns. We use this same activity with some deeper theory in our final year university mathematics course, so it is definitely real mathematics!

• "Why is this maths?" We are so conditioned to see mathematics as equations or word problems that it can be hard to see maths in new contexts. But maths is everywhere! Being able to think mathematically means learning to appreciate this. This is where the Zine can help. The Zine guides students through an introduction to fractals (including fractals in the real world) and then a set of exercises to help them engage mathematically with their Menger sponge. There are also extension activities for those students who want to go deeper.

We have included a detailed discussion on links to the New Zealand Curriculum in the introduction to the teacher version of the Zine.