Every birthday I consider whether I'm in the "prime of my life" ... like when I was 29 years old. Will this new year be a prime year? I hope so.
Don't use Google or Siri or whatever. Just see if you can figure this out and explain your reasoning.
The activity: PrimeYear2019.pdf
Share the data in your class and ask what the numbers make your students wonder and what they can observe from the information.
Winter Solstice - Students appreciate how their latitude effects the darkness of their late afternoon location as they study the earth's tilt and the logic of daylight hours. 7.G.3, HSG.C, HSG.GMD.4, HSG.MG.1 - Updated for 2018!
Soda Santa - First students guess too high and too low. Then they calculate with all different methods and explain their reasoning. Areas, arrays ... so many ways to focus this activity. 3.MD.5, 3.MD.6, 3.MD.7, 4.NBT.5, 5.NBT.5, 7.SP.5, 7.SP.7a
Check out our Christmas Tree. We need to buy lights for the tree. Without calculating, guess how many feet of lights you will need. What information do you need to better estimate the number of feet of lights that you need? (Give students time to consider what info they have and what they need)
Activity is here for your class: ChristmasTree.pdf
Dr. Sara Santos is a popular mathematician and speaker on mathematics. She has worked out a method for wrapping boxes (rectangular prisms) as efficiently as possible. (Watch the video above) Her method was written up in this article in Mental Floss and she was interviewed about her wrapping paper method in this video clip from The One Show.
In this activity students determine if this method for minimizing wrapping paper is actually more efficient then the traditional method. For a hands on learning experiment, have students actually wrap a small rectangular prism using any available paper in both the traditional and diagonal methods. Then let them compare the two quantities of wrapping paper and decide which method uses less paper and by what percent.
Clicking on this image will show it larger in a new window.
Recently scientists in the UK and Australia did a study for the Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health to verify the time it takes for a small plastic object (Lego head) to pass through one's digestive system and be expelled. The group annotated the study with humor. We think students will easily love and share this math.
