Equations and Expressions Module

Ratios & Proportions Unit

Cat food and Recycling

Knee surgery & Muscle weakness

Tesla Roadster Loan

Tesla Roadster Trip

Theoretical vs Empirical Probability-Dice Activity

M & M Variablility

California Adventures- Central Tendency and Variation

Tree Diagrams and Compound Probabilities

Goal: The goal of this activity is for students to understand how to find probabilities of compound events by drawing tree diagrams and listing out sample spaces. Depending on the grade level, with or without replacement events can also be used and illustrated. Materials Needed: Each person in the group will need a copy of the worksheet.

Central Tendency and Measures of Dispersion

Goal: The goal of this activity is to allow students the ability to practice data collection and find measures of central tendency and dispersion. Wrap up questions will also allow for an insight into how each of these calculations are related to one another. Materials needed: 12 small bags of M & M’s (they can be the fun size or regular packs), calculator and the M & M worksheet and answer sheet.

Ice Cream and Temperature-Correlation Activity

Goal: The goal of this activity is for students to graph the data on a scatterplot and discuss the relationship they see between ice cream and temperature. 

Outlier Activity

Goal: The goal of this activity is for students to interpret measures of central tendency when an outlier is present. They will also be able to identify which value is an outlier and create a boxplot as well.

Inferences about two populations

Goal: The goal of this activity is for students to compare to samples from two different populations. They will make inferences based on what they find from their dot plot.

Contingency Table Activity

Goal: The goal of this activity is to read a table and gather data from it and use it to create a contingency table. Students will then be asked a series of questions discussing what they see when they create a contingency table and what are some of the benefits with using one.

Understanding probability using a deck of cards

This activity is to familiarize your students with a standard deck of cards. Have your students get into groups of 2 or 3 and walk them through the beginning part. You can chose to have your students simplify each probability as a fraction or round to the thousandths place. Hopefully the students will see that all of the probabilities they find will always be between 0 and 1 inclusive.

Creating a Probability Model

Goal: The goal of this activity is for students to grasp the understanding of how to put together a probability model for the rolling of a single die and also the sum of the rolls of two dice.

Estimating the Mean

Goal: The goal of this activity is for students to randomly draw words from an excerpt to estimate the mean length word count of the entire document. 

Creating a histogram using temperatures

Goal: The goal of the current activity is to have students read data from a map of the U.S., create a frequency table, answer questions and create a frequency histrogram.

Area of a house

Goal: The goal of this activity is for students to find the area of a house floor plan. They will need to use their knowledge of rectangles to identify the missing side lengths to find the correct area. This also allows students to see how area is used in a real-life application.

Scatter Plot Activity

Goal: The goal of this activity is for students to see different types of correlation and recognize the patterns associated with each type of correlation. They will then have to create their own scatter plot based on directions given.

Is Ellen Correct?

This clip was edited for middle school students: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeOLW-NqQt4

Now THAT'S Some Gas Mileage!

This activity involves working with percentages and is connected with the ACCR Standards at the sixth and seventh grade levels.

Spreading Rumors!

Welcome to Rumor Middle School! News at Rumor Middle School travels quickly! Use the information presented in the problem to determine how many kids will know a rumor an hour and ten minutes after the first person shared it.  Then, find what time it will be when over 4,000 students know the rumor! Stick with it! Use multiple strategies, and be ready to share and defend your work!

A Motorcycle Transaction

Myles purchases two motorcycles without his mother's permission. She makes him sell them. You will determine if he made a profit or a loss in this buying and selling transaction. Concepts: percent to decimal conversion, finding the percent of a number, and calculating the percent of change.

Piggy Bank Ca$h!

Meredith has LOTS of one dollar bills in her piggy bank, and she discovers something special when she stacks the bills in piles of 5, 6, and 8 bills. Find a pattern to answer some questions about what will happen if she stacks the bills in piles of 9. 

A Coin Conundrum!

Figure out how many nickels and how many quarters Jamie has if you also know the total value of the coins. Then, take the problem to a whole new level by mixing in several dimes. Now THIS is a real coin conundrum!

An AREA Riddle

Knowing the perimeter of a certain rectangle, see if you can figure out what the area of the rectangle might be. Then, discover what happens to the area when the perimeter of the rectangle doubles...

Fantastic Fruit!

Algebra at its finest! The weights of several different fruits are being compared in this problem. Use the given information to state the weight of various fruits in terms of the other fruit...

Can We SWIM Yet?

The Johnson family is SO excited to go swimming in their new pool! Which of the three hoses should they use to fill it the most quickly? How long will it take to fill if they use all three of the hoses? 

Biking to Bernie's

Geometric Sequences

This lesson utilizes the softward Smart Notebook to introduce students to geometric sequences and related vocabulary, as well as how to find the nth term of a geometric sequence. Several practice problems are included.

Earth Day Math

This powerpoint presentation for Earth Day Mathematics Lesson touches on many mathematical concepts such as volume, estimation, mean (average), measurement, and unit conversion. Students work in cooperative groups to find the approximate volume of rubber that a small business has 'rescued' from a local landfill. Alternate application ideas provided.

Sharing Pencils

Sarah and Michelle are working on a class project using colored pencils. Given some information about the number of pencils that Sarah and Michelle had when they started, and how some sharing of pencils has taken place, students must employ proportional reasoning skills to determine how many colored pencils the girls now possess.

Here Fishy, Fishy!

Yolanda and Zachary each have some fish. Zachary gives Yolanda some of his fish, and now he has twice as many fish as she does. Students must utilize given information and apply proportional reasoning skills in order to figure out how many fish Zach gave Yolanda.

How Many Houses?

Carpenters and apprentices are busy building houses... Students are asked to answer four questions regarding the relationships between the number of workers and how many houses can be built during a specific number of days.

A Pool Design Pattern

A pool desinger has lost his plans for some large, rectangular pools. He needs your help to sketch the next two pools in the pattern, and to develop a rule to determine how many tiles he'll need to create a visual model of the designs.

Two Pails

This problem will challenge you to think about how to acquire 5 gallons of water if the only tools that you have are a 3 gallon pail and a 7 gallon pail. A great logic problem!

Find the Fraction!

Students will certainly need to persevere while applying their prior knowledge about variables, expressions, and equations to solve the fraction problem posed in this activity!

How Many Chickens?

Farmer Frank raises chickens and pigs. Students are asked to use specific given information to determine how many of Farmer Frank's animals are chickens. This problem will require students to persevere as they apply prior knowledge of fractions, ratios, and percents to algebra concepts such as solving a system of equations.

Explorations with Unit Rates, Slope, Equations of a Line and an Intro to Systems of Equations

Handouts to walk students through exploring unit rates, slope, equation of a line, x and y intercepts and an intro to systems of equations.

Problem Solving Template

Problem solving template used in my classroom. In PDF and Word formats. Created by members of Cohort 1 in Collaboration with Dr. Vicich.

To Rent or Not to Rent....

An real world intro activity to solving systems of equations using a graph.

System of Inequalities

Students create a system of inequalities given certain real-life conditions and then find solutions of their system that would fit their scenario.

Developing and Solving Equations Unit

Quadratic - Fence Problem

This is an activity designed to introduce a lot of concepts tied to quadratic functions. A piece of advice, make sure each group uses TWO pieces of pipe cleaners.

Capture-Recapture

Imagine that a city employee is given the task of counting the number of fish in a city pond in a park. The “capture-recapture” method may be used to approximate the number of fish in the pond. The employee could capture a number of fish, say 20, and tag them and release them back into the pond. Waiting until the fish have a chance to become mixed with the other fish in the pond, the employee can capture more fish. If the number of fish captured is 25 and 4 of them are tagged, we can use proportional reasoning to estimate the number of fish in the pond.

Preheating the Oven

Students use rate of change ideas to predict how long it will take for an oven to preheat to 400 degrees. The youtube video may be used to bring drama to the lesson! A link to the video is here and also in the documents. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2ooIWFAcII&list=UUiPlxONW80Z8rGpu3lSLwjg

How Big or How Little?

This activity is designed to have students think about what it means to “keep it in proportion” – a very common phrase, but what does it mean?

Rule Time: Salute to Speed

You will need these video clips: Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XLkMx58Mb8 Part 2 (after the problem situation is resolved) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ28I3TLcRI Outtakes if you want - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObBiRjepgxA