Thanksgiving, Black Friday, football and giving (12 activities)

barbecued-smoked-turkeyHow should I cook my turkey? - Students judge timing, cost, tastiness, and quantity necessary as they plan for the feast. 4.MD.1, 5.NBT.7, 4.MD2, 6.RP.3, 6.NS.3, 7.NS.3  Great video on a deep frying fire with William Shatner.

Lots of Cranberries - (new) In this timely activity, students learn about how cranberries are grown and harvested; estimate their size and quantities; and see what they can deduce from published statistics. 5.MD, 6.RP, 6.SP, 7.G.B, 8.G

Not enough mashed potatoes - (updated) Use Brian's famous mashed potatoes recipe to practice changing decimals to fractions; calculating ingredient measure for various-sized Thanksgiving servings; have students explain their reasoning; and to have students figure out how many servings 7½ pounds of potatoes would make. 5.NF.6 , 5.NF.6 , 6.RP.1 , 6.RP.2 , 6. RP.3 , 7.RP.1

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Black Friday

Black-Friday-Deals1

When shopping next Friday, students will be able to add some understanding and analysis to the trip after calculating savings in dollars and percents with this timely investigation.

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Not enough mashed potatoes

We've updated this activity to be more appropriate for this year's strange Thanksgiving.Sour Cream Mashed Potatoes; Ina GartenUsing his famous mashed potato recipe, Brian has asked students

    • to change decimals to fractions,
    • to calculate ingredient measures for various-sized Thanksgiving servings,
    • to explain their thinking in calculating these figures
    • and to judge how many servings could be created from 7½ pounds of potatoes.

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Lots of Cranberries

The harvest must be nearing completeion now and growers have sold their product to make cranberry juice, jelly, sauce, and of course, fresh berries in time for Thanksgiving.

In this timely activity, students learn about how they are grown and harvested; estimate their size and quantities; and see what they can deduce from published statistics.

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Canstruction

Act One:  Take a look at the pic. What questions come to mind?

Just before Thanksgiving there are competitions all over the world to celebrate cool design, tricky engineering, and to donate a whole lot of food. At the end of the exhibit, all the creations are dismantled and the construction materials (thousands of cans of food) are given directly to soup kitchens, food banks, shelters and senior homes. Canstruction, Inc. now has events in over 200 cities worldwide.

Above is a picture of an exhibit called "Downside Up" which was the winning exhibit from Canstruction, 2010, in New York City.

Act Two:  How many cans does it take to build this structure?  What information do you need to determine this?  How did you determine your solution? What else did you notice that is mathematical?

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Veterans Day 2020

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 live in the U.S.

What do you notice and what do you wonder when seeing these maps?

Clicking on this image will show it larger in a new window.

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