Category: Math and Social Studies

Memorial Day 2023

Who are we honoring?  How did the holiday come about?  Isn’t Memorial Day usually on May 30th?
Students learn a little about the history of the holiday, analyze the possibilities and patterns for when it is celebrated and make observations about the incredible numbers of deaths that have been caused by war.

The 8th billion baby

How fast is the World’s population growing? Will the world’s population size increase indefinitely?  Are all countries’ populations increasing at the same rate? What are some of the factors affecting this growth?

Mother’s Day ideas (14 activities)

Updated! How much do we spend on Mother’s Day – Use the Mother’s Day event to engage your students in approximating, reasoning, and investigating as students estimate how much is spent in the United States for Mother’s Day. For what…

New bust of King Charles … in chocolate

Saturday, King Charles will be crowned as the King of the United Kingdom. Artists at the Mars Wrigley company made a gorgeous chocolate bust of the King wearing his military uniform. We wondered how much that big piece of chocolate cost to make.

Earth Day actions for our planet

We have 16 activities that you could use for Earth Day! Saturday, April 22nd is Earth Day. Help your students become activists for our planet? We have 16 activities that support recycling, conserving resources, awareness of climate change and protecting our planet.…

Spring and Easter ideas – 6 activities

Dyeing eggs with food coloring – Students use the chart on the back of a food dye package to compare the strangely different recipes listed for coloring a cake, icing, or dyeing eggs. They look for and create equivalent ratios…

Valentine’s Day (11 activities)

Have a heart Canstruction – Students use reasoning and approximation to analyze the number of cans of food contained in this one giant heart.  Consider starting out the activity by showing students the picture of the heart and doing a see…

Powerball, Mega Millions, and probability

Recently the Mega millions’ jackpot was won in Maine at 1.35 billion dollars.  Last year, someone won 2.04 billion dollars in Powerball.   Students examine compound probability and decide whether playing Powerball or Mega millions is worth it.

Lunar New Year 2023

A combination of 10 Heavenly Stems and 12 Earthly Branches, the year’s symbol creates a sequence of year names that eventually repeat. Students explore the least common multiple of these two cycles without ever hearing the term LCM.

Median age of country populations

The median age of countries is used to predict the future needs of each country. What are the ramifications of a predominately young population or a predominantly older population,  Why do scientists use the median measurement to study this?