Colorful Tangle Dance

When thinking about building a lesson plan for a 2-hour teachers' circle around our theme, I think it is important to keep it both engaging yet concise. I think it is also important to understand the people who will be attending the workshop. Yes they are math teachers, but they may not have done upper level mathematical thinking in years, so it is important to keep things at a semi-basic level, so that they understand the concepts. I don't really have a preference as to which piece of the workshop I plan, but I think I would enjoy planning the opening best. Planning an activity to have everyone start with and give them a basic introduction as to what the objectives are and what we plan to cover during the workshop. I am assuming we are each going to be in charge of a 30 minute portion, so the first half hour would work perfectly. 

I really like the idea Tanton uses with his tangle dance After the dancers have danced for a while, an envelope is placed over the tangle and another person yells out another series of instructions, then stop. The envelope is then removed resulting in their tangle untangled. This may spark the question, how did this work? Depending on how many people we have at the workshop, we could split them into groups if needed, and have 2 different tangle dances going. I think it is important to incorporate all three parts of Tanton's tangle dance activity, before diving into coloration.