Year of the Metal Rat Lunar New Year begins on Saturday, January 25th. This will be the year of the Metal Rat. The year name is a combination of 10 Heavenly Stems and 12 Earthly Branches creating a sequence of…
Category: Math and Social Studies
Martin Luther King, Jr. (5 activities)
Data on the National Mall sites – Two data analysis activities about the National Mall. Who do we honor? – What people or events are included in the National Mall monuments? Students use fractions or percents to decide what they can notice…
It’s Girl Scout cookie time again!
Totally new activity! Let your students talk about their favorite Girl Scout cookies as they figure out what the local GS chapter really earns from these sales. Use this old graphic (where a box only costs $4.00) to figure out…
Wanna work for Uber?
Students examine the ads and decide what is and isn’t said. Do the ads give enough information to make a decision? Which is the better deal? How do you know?
Winter holidays – 17 activities
Hanukkah dates keep changing!
3 Hanukkah activities; the amazing Hebrew calendar, soda menorah, and potato latkes. In the calendar activity, students look at the Hebrew calendar and appreciate the incredible mathematics involved in creating a calendar that aligns both the moon’s revolution about the Earth and the Earth’s revolution about the Sun.
Thanksgiving, football, Black Friday, and giving (11 activities)
11 math activities to use before the Thanksgiving break. Football, Turkey baking, Consumer spending, Macy’s Parade, mashed potato recipe doubling, and more …
Canstruction
In this 3-act activity, students look for a pattern to count these cans. Canstruction is an annual event that takes place just before Thanksgiving in cities throughout the world to raise money and gather food for local food banks.
Veterans Day
On Veterans Day we honor the men and women that have served in the Armed Forces of the United States. As of the the 2010 Census, there are 18.8 million living veterans. We found these maps that show where veterans…
Weird happenings at the end of daylight saving time
Strange happenings when one neighborhood observes daylight saving time and one neighborhood doesn’t. Do you get confused? Does UTC notation help?
Operation Gratitude – Halloween candy buy back
This is a great idea! Motivate kids to get rid of all of that candy for a good cause. Operation Gratitude and dentists are encouraging healthy eating, motivated giving, and offering a good use for all of that leftover candy.…
Costume spending
Use our updated data on Halloween spending in America to engage your students in an analysis of the ratios and percents of population, participation, and money spent in honor of October 31st. This activity takes kids through finding parts of wholes as well as ratio, percents and proportion problems.
Climate justice – 14 activities
Last week millions of people marched in hundreds of countries worldwide to demand “climate justice”. Greta Thunberg speaking at World Economic Forum 2018 Choose from any of our 14 activities to let students quantify some of the results of climate…
Back to school activities
Who’s going back to school? – Students calculate the historical changes in U.S. population percentages of people who are going back to school and try to formulate reasons for these variations. 6.EE, 6.RP.3, 6.SP, 7.EE, 7.RP.3, 7.SP Does it pay to get…
Does it pay to get educated?
Updated! Why should students do well in school, graduate high school, or go on to college? In this activity median earnings by various education levels are explored. Students compare the earnings of a non-high school grad with workers who graduated…