We have tons (well, 16) of activities to bring to your class in this last week before the holiday break. Movies, science, art, cooking, economics, weather and the logic of calendars. Enjoy!
Before the holidays (16 activities)
Category: Movies and Entertainment
The Algebra of Magic Squares
Students examine Magic Squares for how they could help with math computation practice and having fun.
Buy, buy, buy and ship (8 ideas)
Here comes Black Friday, Small business Saturday, Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday. It’s a crazy time of year. Use all of that shopping to educate your students about good deals and how shoppers can be fooled. Is this really 70%…
Where should I drop my puck
Act 1 – Give students time to view the game board above or give them our one-page activity. The above picture is larger when you click on it. Ask students for their gut reaction about which slot would give them…
The odds of horse race betting
Rich Strike surprised everyone at the Kentucky Derby horse race in early May by moving from 18th place at the half-way mark (out of 20 horses) to winning the race. Churchill Downs, the track in Kentucky where the race took place, paid out $81 for every dollar that was bet for Rich Strike to win. How do they figure that?
Mental math tricks – part 2
36 x 25 = 900 480 x 25 =12,000 924 x 2.5 = 2,310 Can you see any tricks for doing these calculations in your head? The activity: ImpressYourParents-part2.pdf
When will WORDLE run out of words?
Have you played WORDLE yet? Why do you suppose that this game is so popular? When will there be no new 5-letter words to try?
Winter Olympic Activities (7 activities)
Curling – Friction, score-keeping, trajectory and weirdness are the main concepts in this activity. Curling is not a well-understood sport but the science and strategy are easily understood and enjoyed. Big Air Snowboarding – Some of your students may be officianados…
Spider-Man continues
How much did it cost to make?
How much will it gross?
Is the Spider-Man phenomena a guarantee for success?
How would you compare all of the Spider-Man movies?
Ravensburger huge puzzle
Students surmise what the difficulty of a jig saw puzzle entails and use rate calculations to estimate finishing times. They try to confirm whether doubling the number of pieces really increases puzzle completion time by a multiple of four.
Some of our activities that are good for at-home learning
We’ve got hundreds of great activities that demonstrate how math happens all around us. Let your student choose an activity that interests him/her and enjoy the discoveries.
Movies and the upcoming Oscars
Compounded percent change; central tendencies; the weight of Rapunzel’s 70 feet of hair; Godzilla’s height by comparison; how to measure the profitability of a movie series; most appropriate graphical representations; line of best fit; and more …
Do the best movies make the most money?
Do the “Best” movies make the most money? How could you measure the “best” movie? What information would you need to make this judgement? At most ten movies are nominated each year to receive an Oscar for the Best Picture. On Sunday, February…
Star Wars … the story continues
The Rise of Skywalker will open on December 20, 2019. How much did it cost to make? How much will it gross? Is the Star Wars phenomena a guarantee for success? How would you compare these movies? We’ve been gathering data…
What’s the answer?
Math doesn’t usually create a buzz on Twitter. This past week this post did just that. People argued online about whether the answer was 16 or 1 and proceeded to insult each other’s intelligence in doing so. Use our write-up…