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Starbucks sales and nutrition
It's a good time to give students some authentic math on a topic they probably will be interested in ... Starbucks beverages. We ask and answer a few questions in ...

Hanukkah is almost here! – 3 activities
Three great activities to play and learn about Hanukkah. Soda displays, Hebrew calendar, and relating two recipes for their healthiness ...

What does my wreath symbolize?
Students learn about the source of the peace sign. They play with semaphore images to design their own logo. They investigate the number of semaphore signals that could be created ...

Thanksgiving, football, shopping and giving
Thirteen provocative activities for this holiday season of Thanksgiving, football, and shopping ...

Consumer Spending 2023
Consumers in the U.S. spend a lot of money. In this activity we look at historical data to see if there are any patterns in our spending. How does our ...

What is a quantum dot?
Students learn about nanotechnology and why it works by looking closely at surface area and its comparison to volume. Hopefully they will begin to understand the incredible possibilities of this ...

Veterans Day, 2023
Population and Density maps of where Veterans live. What can you observe? What do you wonder? How do they compare? ...

2023 World Cup Cricket
In this activity students learn about the game; calculate the number of matches that must be played; and try to reason how to count the matches in a more abstract ...

DST ends November 5th – strange happenings
In this activity students try to figure out how time settings will change as they move from place to place and what variables are involved in the daylight savings time ...

Yummy Pumpkin Pie
23 people are coming to my house for pumpkin pie and a hike. How many pies should I make? How much of each ingredient will I need? What quantities should ...

14 ideas for Halloween
We have 14 great activities to use in your class as we near Halloween. Candy sales; Participation in activities; Creating a sheet ghost costume; Bats; Figuring chocolate volume; Dia de ...

How many Americans (and their pets) participate in Halloween?
Surveys show that more and more people are involved in and spending on Halloween activities. If the percent of Americans participating continues at this pace and the population continues to ...

Vampire bats + Mosquito eating bats
Two activities. Vampire bats = We've given lots of interesting metric and customary unit facts and asked students to relate those sizes to more familiar objects. + Mosquito eating bats ...

Heating with wood – What’s a cord?
Students get a visual and geometric understanding of the measurements and shapes of a cord of wood while using the relative size of a ruler in various images ...

Nobel Prizes
The Nobel Prizes have just been awarded. Alfred Nobel was a chemist, engineer, inventor, and businessman. He left most of his fortune to endow 5 prizes for "those who, during ...

More Population Pyramids
The population pyramid above shows the distribution of the World by ages and sex for each continent. How can that information help you put your vision of the world in ...

Indigenous Peoples or Columbus Day
Two activities - Students calculate how large Columbus must have thought the circumference of the Earth was if he reached the East India when he landed in the Bahamas + ...

Will this be an El Niño winter?
Students study charts that show variations from normal sea surface temperatures during El Niño years. They get the chance to more fully understand these events and understand the world-wide ramifications ...

Huge Alaskan Vegetables
The growing season in Alaska is short, but, farmers are able to grow 75 pound cabbages, 100 pound kales, and 1,000 pound pumpkins. How do they do that? Stnds calculate ...

Lego Fireman +
Students use our lego measurements to underestimate and over estimate this giant firefighter's construction time and LEGO block quantity. Then students average their class estimates and compare to the real ...

U. S. Open Tennis Tournament prizes have been awarded
Students ponder the amounts for various wins, they will work with patterns, use number sense, reasoning, and have the opportunity to model real-life situations with algebra ...

Autumnal Equinox 2023
Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 06:50 UTC (2:50 am EST), will be the Autumnal Equinox. It is the time of year when an imaginary plane would pass through both the ...

The Moroccan Earthquake and the Richter scale
Friday evening, September 8th, a powerful 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit Morocco southwest of Marrakech. What does a 6.8 magnitude earthquake mean? How powerful was that? What is a seismometer and ...

Little Amal walks across the United States
Little Amal's plight as a 10-year old Syrian refuge is a powerful story to see and speak about as students calculate this giant puppet's components and try to understand her ...

Will the Barbie movie out-perform Avatar at the box office?
Do you think that Barbie can out-earn Avatar? Students study the numbers, recognize the need for an inflation adjustment, get to share their observations about the movie and its messages, ...

Justin Verlander’s lunch bill
In the 2017 World Series, the Houston Astros beat the Los Angeles Dodgers and went on to play (and lose to) the Boston Red Sox in the finals. Evidently the ...

Hurricanes again …
Updated In this updated hurricane activity, we've ask students to examine the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale and consider what other elements besides this ranking may contribute to the devastation that ...

Jock tax 2023
In this activity students consider the remarkable differences in state taxes that high paid pro athletes have to pay. Students determine how much more money an athlete should be paid ...

Monarch’s are flying south again
In mid-August and early September, the Monarch butterflies begin their annual migration south to more moderate climates to hibernate and overwinter. In this activity students read charts, do a little ...

What do you know about the Hawaiian islands?
Let your students explore Hawaii and better understand its depths, heights, and origins as they compare maps and deduce info from charts ...

Will sending you back to school this year cost a fortune?
In this activity students decide what equipment and supplies are necessary, estimate how much that will all cost, confer with classmates to refine their lists, and then research to find ...

Women’s World Cup – How many matches are left?
The first round of Group play has finished and now the remaining teams start the second round of play. The teams have already played a lot of matches. How many? ...

This shoe is huge!
In this activity student need to use a shoe size chart, patterns or linear modeling to try to figure out what size this shoe must be. Then they try to ...

Lionel Messi, soccer star and influencer
Lionel Messi is possibly the best soccer player in the world. How much influence does he have? Messi just shared an Apple TV link on his Instagram account. The link ...

It’s opening weekend for Barbie
This activity lets students express their excitement (or lack of) in seeing this new movie, study the data of previously successful movies, and predict whether Barbie will be a financial ...

How many baseballs are in this truck?
To see this poster larger in a new window, click on the image. In 2017, Old Dominion Freight Line offered 2 free tickets to the next 3 World Series to ...

How many times bigger?
Listen to students initial thoughts as they wrestle through what "bigger" means ... length? height? wheel-base? volume? Come up with guesses that are too high and too low. Show that ...

Ice Cream Day – July 16th
We have two timely activities ... Updated! All the ice cream that you can eat All the ice cream that you can eat for only 10 cents! Wow, that's a ...

Wildfires and particulate matter
Wildfires in Canada have been spreading dangerous smoke pollution throughout much of North America. What is a dangerous size of particles per cubic meter (PM)? How tiny is that? How ...

What is heat index?
Is some heat more bearable? What is the heat index measure? How does that affect our risks and our tolerance of heat? How does sweat come into all of this? ...

The 4th of July
Flag art, creating a 5-pointed star with one cut, fireworks on your calculator, hot dog eating contest, and a possible new, 52-star flag ...

Can Joey and Miki do it again?
Updated ! The MLE - Major League Eating is a World organization that oversees speed eating contests. Entrants to the various competitions must be ...

200 people
Let your students ponder this gif in full screen and then let them share what they notice and why this gif might have been created ...

Doubling your money
How long would it take you to double your invested money. Students look at different percent rates and calculate (and realize) how long doubling takes ...

Summer Solstice, the longest day
In this activity, students compare length of daylight to place latitude while studying the correlation, evaluating Excel generated formulas, and appreciating the significance of this date ...

Father’s Day and Juneteenth
For Father's Day Thank you Mother and Father for all of those diapers - Students compare the cost of buying disposable versus cloth diapers. They estimate how much they cost ...

How many scoops do I need?
In this 3-act activity, students need to invent a different way to measure the powdered chocolate than what the instructions dictate. How many 1/4th teaspoonsfuls of powder = 2 teaspoons? ...

It’s almost summer now
How much water should you drink? How much pee is in this pool? How has the presence of lyme disease changed? Which is the best drink deal at the fair? ...

Souvenirs and concessions
This activity is an introduction to systems of equations with easy, motivating problems that deal with the cost of stadium purchases for food and souvenirs. These can be done by ...

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 in the binomial expansion, Pascal
Realizing that (X+Y)n can be expanded with the help of Pascal's Triangle offers some pretty and interesting math play. We love to bring a little fun and beauty into our ...

Triple Crown hopefuls at the Preakness
Saturday, May 20th, will be the running of the Preakness Stakes thoroughbred horse race in Baltimore, Maryland. The Preakness is the second major race for 3-year old thoroughbreds to run ...

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 ...

Effects of new MLB rules
Students use our recent data to graph, analyze and hypothesize about the affect of the new MLB rule changes ...

Guacamole for Cinco de Mayo
This activity involves recipe analysis, pricing, and comparison. Students gather the ingredients for a famous recipe and analyze how much it would cost to make it at home versus buying ...

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 ...

Wheel of Theodorus
Bring a little art into your math class as you begin to use the Pythagorean theorem and your students first meet irrational numbers ...

The HAT tessellation
An Einstein aperiodic tile has just been discovered. Find out what that means and why it is significant. Plus - play with the tiles. Do you want to tile your ...

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, ...

Tax time, Patriots Day, Boston Marathon
The middle of April is a busy and interesting time. We have 6 timely activities to try in your classes ...

Time to make your prom clothes … with Duck Tape
Admire the possibilities of Duck Tape attire and calculate the cost of some of the outfits in time and tape ...

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, ...

Passover starts on Wednesday
Two activities involving fraction halving, doubling, and tripling operations with recipes for Passover. Students end up creating a huge matzo ball ...

Challenges for April Fools Day
This day is known for pranks and puzzles. Try one of these 4 activities on April Fools Day. Ask students to analyze where I made my mistake ...

What is an atmospheric river (AR)?
Atmospheric Rivers! How are they ranked? Students become familiar with this weather phenomena and learn how they are measured. To more fully understand their power, students compare the strength of ...

How hard it is to pick the perfect bracket?
If you try to predict how the games will play out by filling out a bracket, what are your chances of picking every game? How does the change from 64 to ...

March Equinox – big deal? … and 5 more Spring activities
Brand new! What's with the March Equinox? Does it really affect our lives? Is it just some astronomical occurrence? Students calculate the daylight hours at the March Equinox by time ...

March Madness – Does seeding really matter?
Engage your students in percents as they get excited about March Madness. Is getting a higher seed really an advantage? Use 30 years of data to help determine for which seeds ...

How hard is it to find a 4 leaf clover? (3 Saint Patrick’s Day activities)
We have 3 Saint Patrick's Day activities for your math class. How hard is it to find 4-leafed clovers, the nutritional values of a Shamrock Shake, and measuring parts per ...

Just some March Madness math
This is the first of several activities about March Madness. Figuring percents, bar graphs, trends, big numbers, and probability ...

Daylight savings time
Will you wake up and go to sleep earlier or later on that Sunday? What kind of chart or picture could you draw to help you compare before and after ...

Two 12s or one 18?
Which should we order and why? Two 12-inch pizzas or one 18-inch pizza? Which will give you more pizza? More crust? Which is the better deal? ...

Square or Round – which pizza should I buy?
Warm up for π day with this updated activity! If that slice from Sbarro is from an 18-inch pizza cut into eight pieces, which deal is better when comparing area ...

Iditarod 2023 – The Last Great Race on Earth
The Iditarod Dogsled Race will begin this year on Saturday, March 4th in Anchorage, Alaska. It is often called The Last Great Race on Earth because it is so long and grueling. Students ...

Population Pyramids – What can you surmise?
The distribution of a population's age and gender data can tell you a lot about a society's history, current situation, and future. What do you see happening here? The activity: ...

Mardi Gras and Presidents’ Day
How much are US presidents paid? Step graph. Fair? Mardi Gras, meaning, parades, beads, value, cost, reuse, environment ...

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 ...

Chocolate heart-shaped raspberry cake
For Valentine's Day, bake a cake. Students calculate base area or volume of cakes made from 2 cake pan sizes and observe how the volume of the cake changes with ...

Super Bowl Activities (10 activities)
We have 10 great super bowl activities for your math classes ...

Sweetheart candies
How many dollars worth of sweetheart candies used to be sold each Valentine's season? How much is one candy worth? After Valentine's Day their price is reduced. How much are ...

Typical Super Bowl scores
In this activity students study historical Super Bowl data to reflect on average (mean, median, and mode), losing scores, winning scores, and range of scores. They are asked to judge which of ...

Ground Hog day
How often does Punxsutawney Phil get it right? Relative frequency! A cute animal will make your students smile as they calculate the relative frequency of Phil's correct past predictions ...

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 ...

Throwing Up 2023
It's hard to shovel new snow when you have to get your shovel-full over previous snow banks. You have to throw the snow practically straight up. Predict the arc of ...

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 ...

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 ...

MLK and efforts towards racial justice
Timelines for the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr. - Students create one of two timelines about Martin Luther King Jr's life or the efforts in America to ...

Big bucks 2023
Huge sports contracts! We often hear about big player contracts. Who makes the most per year? Per game? What sports? ...

Earth’s perihelion with the Sun
Today, Wednesday, January 4th, 2023, Earth will be as close as it gets to the Sun during its orbit. Shouldn't that make this the warmest time of the year? In ...

Is 2023 a special number?
What do you notice about 2023? What is a Harshad number? Does 2023 meet the criteria? Big deal? Rare? Often? ...

The Times Square Ball
What does truncation mean? How is the Times Square Ball related to an icosahedron? Let students learn about the crystals and the LEDs that create this beautiful construction ...

Beautiful mathematics
Color, measure, design, Sierpinski, spirals, Pythagorean triples, hexadecimal color codes, fractals, string design, modular math, Pascal's triangle, Fibonacci, polyhedra, build an eclipse ... Enjoy! ...

Before the holidays (16 activities)
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 ...

How many feet of lights should I buy for my tree?
In this 3-act task, your class guesses how many feet of lights you will need to light your tree. Then gather data from groups and find means or medians. Then ...

Winter Solstice 2022
How is the amount of darkness now related to your location on Earth? Understanding the Winter Solstice. 7.G.3, HSG.C, HSG.GMD.4, HSG.MG.1 ...

Three Hanukkah activities
Three great activities to play and learn about Hanukkah. Soda displays, Hebrew calendar, and relating two recipes for their healthiness ...

Do I have enough wrapping paper?
In this problem based activity students first guess and then try to calculate whether they will have enough paper to wrap this present without taping pieces of wrapping paper together. I ...

Wind chill
Students use the National Weather Service's chart to look for patterns, make predictions, decide how many ways the wind-chill could be -22 degrees F, and compare the formula's outcome with ...

The Algebra of Magic Squares
Students examine Magic Squares for how they could help with math computation practice and having fun ...

Whole lot of cookies
Jennifer Fairbanks from Hopkinton, MA sent us this picture of the cookies that she baked in 4 hours using 13 eggs and 5 cups of sugar. Do you see some ...

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 ...

World Cup 2022 – Qatar (2 activities)
The World Cup of Soccer begins November 20, 2022. We have two different activities involving the logic of setting up a fair draw and the number of matches that each ...

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

Total lunar eclipse
On the morning of November 8, 2022, many of us will be able to see the last full lunar eclipse until March 2025. Luckily, many of us will be able ...

How big could this mid-term election be?
Will the November 8th election bring record number of voters to the polls? Students get a chance to understand what the usual percentage of voters is, look for trends and ...

I need help raking my leaves
In this activity students see the inverse relationship between number of workers and time to complete the whole job. They graph hyperbolas and consider how long the extreme condition of ...

The size of chocolates
In time for Halloween, students assume that all of our pieces of chocolate are about the same thickness and proceed to approximate their volumes by comparing only their surface areas. ...

Inflation and the cost of gasoline
In 1980, a gallon of gas costs $1.22. Today's prices are a lot higher. Is that because the price has gone up or because in 1980 you could buy a ...

Giant Pumpkins 2022
Sts use proportions to calculate the quantities of pumpkin puree and the number of pumpkin pies that could be made from one of these giant pumpkins ...

Do teams that spend a lot win a lot?
In this activity students compare team wins with team salaries in the four major North American sports ... the NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL. Students use data from recent seasons ...

Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones
This week Hurricane Fiona caused major damage to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean, This is the season for increased cyclonic activity around the globe. How are hurricanes, typhoons, ...

How much caffeine are you consuming?
We asked students to examine the sources of caffeine in their diets and calculate the number of servings that they actually consume ...

Macy’s Star Rewards Points
Wow! Check out this deal at Macy's. For $25 I can join Macy's Star Rewards program. I get 10% back in rewards for every dollar I spend. Its pretty cool that ...

Willy Makeit or Betty Wont
Finally! I see a bathroom sign! Wait ... it is in kilometers? How far is that? Should I run? ...

What is Artemis 1 and when will it launch?
In this activity, students try to decipher several graphics that explain the flight path of the Artemis mission and make comparisons about what has been accomplished before and what is ...

Labor Day 2022
What is this holiday about? Are we celebrating the start of school? New cars? The end of summer? In this short activity, students learn about the intended meaning of Labor ...

Someone ate my cake
In this fraction operation and representation activity, students are asked to decide how much of my cake was eaten. Using fraction multiplication (or angle measure if that is where you ...

But it didn’t sell?
A&W offered a bigger, tastier burger but it didn't succeed in grabbing customers away from the hugely popular McDonald's quarter pounder. The A&W third pounder hamburger cost the same as ...

Hexadecimal coloring
Probably most of us have heard of and even used hexadecimal color codes. Don't you wonder why their number descriptions really make sense? In this activity we first ask students ...

How much pee is in this pool?
A Canadian chemist, Xing-Fang Li, has found a marker for urine that chlorine doesn't disguise. In this activity, students calculate volume of several pools, change that cubic foot volume to gallons ...

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 ...

The James Webb space telescope and the Hubble
There have been outstanding images coming to NASA from the James Webb Telescope. Take some time to compare the Webb to the Hubble telescope that has been sending images to ...

Some fun summer activities
These are an assortment of spacial puzzles, artistic math coloring and understanding, order of operations play, and a seemingly magic math game ...

Should I buy a gasoline, hybrid, or electric car
Should you buy a hybrid or an electric car to save money and the planet? Students create equations for finding the break-even points of these vehicles by mileage and years ...

Mallie’s latest Big Burger
Students learn about the initial weight of the giant meat patty and calculate the final weight of the patty after it is cooked. They decide what percent lean this meat ...

How old are you?
We usually give our ages in years, but that isn't very precise is it? In this activity students find their age in days, hours and minutes. First students take two ...

Why isn’t the World Cup happening now?
The World Cup Finals is only played every 4 years but isn't it always in June? The World Cup Finals 2022 will be played in Qatar from November 21 until ...

NBA Finals 2022
A little sports history and data analysis through the context of NBA Finals math! In this activity students consider scatter plots, circle graphs, bar graphs, Venn Diagrams and the concept ...

Taking two discounts off (2 activities)
Students check out if getting 50% off and then a 20% discount will give them 70% off. Why does that happen? ...

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 ...

When will they collide?
Show the video to your class. Give students time to complain and talk about seeing this commercial. Then take guesses from students about the actual time it would take to ...

Happy Friday the 13th!
Don't worry, 13 is a Happy number! Students learn a new function and test whether a number is Happy or Sad. The activity: Friday-the-13th.pdf CCSS: 5.OA, 6.EE, 8.F, MP1, MP7, ...

Shooting for Three
The NBA court has a 3-point line that separates how many points a player will earn for his team by making a basket from outside of that line. Teams have ...

What time should I wake up?
Surprise Mother's Day breakfast in bed! I think she would like orange juice, scrambled eggs, biscuits, and hot coffee. I’ll add some flowers from outside and fruit to make it ...

Who has the greatest Men’s March Madness program?
The Kansas Jayhawks just won the finals of this year's March Madness tournament. Which NCAA teams have had the best basketball programs over the years. Students decide which stats count ...

How big of a crepe can you make?
At Costco you can buy this huge tub of nutella. It contains nearly 7 pounds of chocolaty-hazelnut spread. We use nutella to make banana/nutella crepes. How long will that tub ...

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 ...

April Fool’s Day fun
Try one of these 4 activities on April Fools Day. Where did that extra dollar go? Mystical Mathematical Mind Reader; perplexing missing square in the triangle; and Robert Kaplinsky's foil ...

Refugees from Ukraine
Civilian Ukrainians are fleeing the war zone in order to remain safe and find food and housing. How do these numbers compare with other tragic evacuations. While interpreting graphics and ...

What is my best gasoline option?
Should I pay the membership fee and get BJ's gasoline? Should I just buy the cheaper gas at Sheetze? Students figure out the best deals with a membership fee, a ...

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? ...

Shrinkflation
Inflation in the cost of living, last year (2021) was estimated to be about a 7%. If "shrinkflation" is happening at the same time as general inflation, is the unit ...

Mardi Gras, 2023
In New Orleans revelers throw and collect purple, green, and gold beads. Students get a chance to examine the monetary and environmental cost of this bead exuberance with our unit ...

Crazy Twos (Two to the…s)
Let your students practice manipulating exponents. Multiplication, division, roots, powers of powers. This powerful activity asks them to do some impressive mathematics ... in their heads ...

February 22, 2022
Why do you suppose we are posting this date as a topic for YummyMath? What do you think is so special about this date? Does this happen often? When might ...

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 ...

Olympic Schedule
The Winter Olympics begins this week in Beijing. Wikipedia had this schedule of events. We think that there is a lot of information missing and apparent in this graphic. What ...

Cold NFL games
There have been some pretty cold football games. How do you suppose the frigid temperatures affect the success or failure of the teams that are involved? Do teams from colder ...

Lighting the 2022 Olympic Torch
This activity introduces students to the power of a parabolic mirror in focusing the Sun's rays to a single, hot, point ... the focus of the parabola ...

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? ...

Mystical Mathematical Mind Reader
The GHOST WHISPERER now has a replacement!!!! John Tranter of Transum Mathematics has created the Mythical Mathematical Mind Reader and we've updated our activity to accompany the fun ...

Super Bowl Numerals
Introduce Roman numerals to your class. In this activity students learn the rules for evaluating Roman numerals, decipher copyright dates, see how Roman numerals are used today, and do some ...

Bowl by the hour or the game?
Students consider the posted pricing of this bowling alley. What must they consider when choosing how to pay? What do you expect will be the best deal? How do you ...

Home team advantage?
Ask students whether they think a game played at home gives their team an advantage. If so, how much of an advantage? Enjoy the discussion first, then show them our ...

Activities for the Holiday break
Students work with the geodesic icosahedron of the Time's Square Ball by slicing an icosahedron. How are properties valued according to their distance from GO in the game of Monopoly? ...

What’s interesting about this number?
What is interesting about the number, 12 22 21 ... and why did we put it on YummyMath today? ...

Will one roll be enough?
Students can use the man or the basket as a reference as they try to approximate the size of these gifts and how much wrapping paper will actually be needed ...

Holiday shipping
These two companies carry a lot of our packages. What can you tell about them by the numbers? Does delivering a little percent late really equal to not many packages ...

What can you tell about a snowflake?
As a snowflake falls from the sky, its crystal grows according to the humidity and temperatures of the air that it passes through. In this activity, students interpret a graphic ...

Wrapping presents on the diagonal
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 ...

Hanukkah is almost here! – updated for 2023
Updated 2023! Hanukkah begins on Thursday evening, December 7th this year. Why is the date always different? Students look at the Hebrew calendar and appreciate the incredible mathematics involved in ...

2 New Macy’s Parade balloons
Students figure out the dimensions of these two new balloons using Macy's hints and judging from the handlers' sizes ...

Shopping season already!
We used to see holiday sales right after Thanksgiving but, surprisingly, holiday shopping has already begun. Sales are advertised everywhere. Students will be able to add some understanding and analysis ...

Collecting the most candy
Use your student’s Halloween enthusiasm to do a study on volumes. We’ve created an activity that asks students to calculate the volume of candy containers that are silly and intriguing ...

I should have invested!
Students use yearly percent increase data to decide which stock: Apple, Disney or Amazon, they should have invested in way back in 2015. What was the net gain of these ...

Which sale would you rather use?
In this short activity, students decide if these two sales are the same. If not, which is better? How would you explain this to someone? ...

Federal debt and deficit – What are they?
What's the big deal with our national debt? Do we actually borrow money to cover our debt? If we do, imagine the interest charges? Help your students (and their families) ...

Chuck E. Cheese needed to shred
Chucky E. Cheese needed to shred 7 billion tickets at a cost of 2.3 million dollars. Was this the real cost of shredding them? ...

Watson saves
Students use the Pythagorean Theorem with Ben Watson's incredible tackle to figure out how far he must have run. Truly phenomenal play! ...

Death Valley, CA – How hot was it?
Take a guess at what the Fahrenheit reading on this sign must have been. How did you make that guess? Use the Fahrenheit conversion formula to calculate the missing number ...

Viral Growth – Talk like a Pirate Day
Sunday, September 19th is talk like a pirate day. Bring some humor and marketing understanding into your class with this activity about a silly holiday that has had viral growth ...

Steepness and fall hiking
Combine colorful and cool fall hiking with a little mathematics about percent grade change. What is a steep grade? Why is it in percent? How does grade change relate to ...

Just ONE hot dog
A newly released nutritional and environmentally sustainable study shows that eating just one hot dog can take 36 minutes off your total healthy lifespan. How many would you have to ...

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, ...

That’s a big tomato!
These Aussi tomatoes (the tomato on the left of all of the tomatoes) are huge. How much do you guess one weighs? Can you figure it out? ...

Let’s learn to gerrymander
In this activity student try to redistrict our pretend state in order to preserve the overall state's leanings in its new districting plan. Then students redistrict the same state in ...

How many athletes brought home no medal?
Probably most of the athletes that went to Tokyo didn't win a Gold, Silver, or Bronze medal. We couldn't find any numbers about these people. Can you figure it out ...

The new R-naught number
Now we're plagued with the Delta variant of the coronavirus. What was the original virus' R-naught number and what has it become? ...

The drag in swimming – 5 Olympics activities
To win in Olympic swimming, contestants have to be incredibly fit and have marvelous endurance and technique. Do they also need to consider the science of their motions and their ...

Need to rent some chaise lounges
Here's the rental sign. How much will 6 lounges and 2 umbrellas cost? ...

Olympic Skateboarding + more
We are very excited to see skateboarding as an event in the Tokyo Olympics. Skateboarding is athletic, artistic and difficult to master. Why has it taken so long to become ...

Ranked Choice Voting in NYC
New York City is still tallying its election results for a new Mayor. This year they tried Ranked Choice Voting. What does that mean? How does that work? What are ...

How much is a trillion dollars?
U.S. Congress is now debating how much money to approve on spending for infrastructure. The numbers are between 1 and 3 trillion dollars. I can't even fathom that amount of ...

Penny Wars anew
Students judge from apparent diameters and penny heights, which jar has the most money. Mrs. Mercado had 3 pictures of scales with two jars on each balance. That is another ...

What is Juneteenth?
You can appreciate why this is such a great celebration when you look at the stages and some of the events and dates of America moving towards freedom from slavery ...

Do caffeinated drinks have similar amounts of jolt?
We found this interesting caffeine infographic at visual.ly. Wonderings? How many McDonalds coffees do I need to get the same amount of caffeine that I would get in a Starbucks coffee? ...

Payday loans – What are they?
What is a payday loan? How is it different from a bank loan or debt on a credit card? Is this a good idea? ...

Monopoly and summer games
In the board game, Monopoly, does a property’s distance from GO correlate to its rent when you land on it? Using Brian’s spread sheet (list of properties, distance from GO, ...

Tree for Springtime
Here in the Northeast, flowers are blooming and trees are leafing out. We thought the creation of a tree that grows before your eyes might be akin to what is ...

Can I get your order right?
Updated! You can order a ton of combos at Chipotle. They advertise that there are 65,000 ways to order their meals. Do you think that is correct? ...

AQI – Air Quality Index
The AQI is a measurement of how much particulate matter, dangerous ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide there is in the world's atmosphere at any one time and ...

How much did the tooth fairy give you when you lost a tooth?
What was the going tooth rate in your house? Do you think that, on average, you were paid well or were you disappointed? Was your first tooth lost especially remunerative? ...

It’s tick time again … and Lyme disease
Spring is the start of tick encounters. Help students study the prevalence of Lyme disease in the US; in their own state; and methods for preventing it. What are your ...

Does an NFL player’s draft order mean a lot for the player?
Students interpret the graph relating draft pick number and contract value. They consider how much being selected earlier or later, either by a few picks or rounds effects a player's ...

Shoprite’s solar energy goals on the African continent
Shoprite is the largest supermarket chain in Africa. The company is presently engaged in increasing their use of solar power to harness the abundant natural resource of solar potential on ...

Will our U.S. flag change yet again?
How many stripes are in our present flag pictured above? (The bottom right flag that has been in use since 1960.) How many stars? What do the numbers of stars ...

Man paid in 500 pounds of greasy pennies!
In this 3-act activity, students learn about the story, watch a PowerPoint presentation about the issue, and try to calculate the amount of money in this pile. Copper pennies, zinc ...

Dunkin’s Go2s
Simultaneous equations with a Dunkin Donuts' sandwich deal. Do you have enough information to solve it? ...

8 cold and snowy activities
How much snow is that? - How many inches of snow produced that pile? How much snow in volume is on top of the car? How much could that snow weigh? Approximation, ...

John Urschel, retired Baltimore Raven and Black mathematician
In this activity, students can learn about this mathematician and retired pro football player as they read to create a timeline of his life and accomplishments. They compare his milestone ...

At least the days are getting longer
What's your guess? How fast are the number of daylight hours changing each day? Are the changes dramatic or subtle? Students make guesses; compute how long, on average, the change in ...

How should I spend my rewards?
For every dollar that you spend, you accumulate points. You can cash them in for savings on groceries, apply them to your gasoline purchases, or even use them to give ...

Lots of pieces
Brian has a lot of puzzles. His family must love working on them. What do you wonder about his puzzles? What do you notice? Make an educated guess, about how ...

Crazy basketball score
Wow! Look at that score! There were some scoreboard malfunctions in this December 15, 2020, pre-season game. What might have been the final score if this game progressed at this ...

Inauguration Date
The date of the Presidential Inauguration this year can be written in an interesting way. What do you notice? What do you wonder? Do you think that this happens often ...

How much snow is that?
Start this activity with: What do you notice? What do you wonder? How many inches of snow produced that pile? How much snow in volume is on top of the car? How ...

Will 2021 be a “prime” year?
Will this be a prime year? We sure hope so. What do you have to do to check it out? ...

December 21, 2020 – Great conjunction
Right now, just after sunset, in the southwest sky, you can check out the planets of Jupiter and Saturn as they get closer and closer to each other. They are ...

Holiday soda displays
The holidays are coming! We found these timely soda displays made up entirely of 12-pack of Coca-Cola products. What questions do you have? Clicking on either image will show them ...

The new largest Lego set ever – The Roman Colosseum
Note: This is a remake of our 2014 and 2017 activities "How Much Does a Lego Cost?". How much could the Roman Colosseum Lego set cost ? Student first make ...

Black Friday
Just updated! When shopping the Black Friday deals, students will be able to add some understanding and analysis to the trip after calculating savings in dollars and percents with this ...

Not enough mashed potatoes
Students change decimals to fractions, calculate ingredient measures for various-sized Thanksgiving servings, explain their thinking in calculating these figures, and judge how many servings could be created from 7½ pounds ...

Lots of Cranberries
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 ...

Canstruction
Just before Thanksgiving there are competitions all over the world to celebrate cool design, tricky engineering, and to donate a whole lot of food. How many cans does it take ...

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 ...

5 Election activities
Is the Electoral College vote similar to the Popular vote? The winner of the Presidential Popular vote (November 3, 2020) is not always the same as the winner of the ...

Candy deals
We found big mixed bags of candy at really good prices ... we think. Students are asked to decide which would be the best deal and the worst deal on candy ...

Is the Electoral College fair?
After showing the video consider asking your students what the grouping of students must have been for "colored pencils" to win the class electoral college? Is there more than one ...

Is the Electoral College vote similar to the Popular vote?
The winner of the Presidential Popular vote (November 3, 2020) is not always the same as the winner of the Electoral College vote (January 6, 2021). In this activity students ...

Electoral College vs. the popular vote
Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com Let your students see how votes really count with our activity on the Electoral College. Can someone win the popular vote ...

Monster cake
First, students need to find the surface area that the M&Ms cover in order to approximate how many M&Ms she needs to finish her cake. When Brian tried to make ...

How much chocolate is left?
Fraction operations might be more interesting when it involves chocolate. Students reason and calculate what is left of these chocolate bars. The bars are the same size but are molded ...

2 Hiking Activities
Appalachian Trail Needs - Calculating the needs and rates involved in enduring this 2,168 mile trek. Steepness and Fall Hiking - Use a little mathematics about percent grade change in ...

Can you show that the Pythagorean Theorem works?
Use this activity to help your students work through the meaning of the Pythagorean theorem. Pythagorean theorem experiences are often skill and drill work with contrived right triangle problems. In ...

Extreme weather 2020
Use the open number line and our lists of temperature extremes to make signed number operations and absolute value sensible. Students compare record high and low temps (integers) and use ...

USPS needs help!
Students learn how the Postal Service is funded and try to decide how the USPS could earn more or spend less in their operation. They finally get to think about ...

Ramen noodle heist
In 2018, the trailer of a truck filled with Ramen noodles was stolen from a parking lot in Georgia. The trailer contents were valued at $98,000. What do you wonder ...

Do you want to be an NBA virtual fan?
For health concerns, professional sports now have no actual live fans. To help generate the excitement and semblance of fans, some teams use cardboard cutouts of people. Some use Zoom ...

How big is this hornet really?
Giant hornets have now migrated to North America. In this activity students take the hornet's measurements in millimeters and try to draw the hornet, life-sized, on centimeter graph paper. They ...

It might be a good year to see the Perseid meteor shower
Catching a productive meteor shower can be a stunning experience. On the evenings and mornings of August 11th, 12th and 13th there could be a very good show. A last ...

Largest s’more ever!
What is reasonable.? How many marshmallows are in this recipe? How many people could this cookie feed? How many marshmallows could you eat? ...

What does the data show?
When you look at the new case numbers of the Coronavirus in the U.S. and compare that with various world and national events and our present scientific understandings, what do ...

How much water should you be drinking?
Student develop and use formulas for calculating their water needs ...

How fast will my new puppy mature?
There is a new dog aging formula that depends on methyl markers that adhere to the DNA molecules of living things. Now we know that dogs don't age as we ...

Does the new “Most Stuf” Oreo have an exorbitant amount of stuf?
How much more "stufed" are they compared to Triple Double Oreos, Double Stuf Oreos or even Original Oreos. Does this look yummy to you or gross? Why are they filled ...

String design, ellipses, and orbital mechanics
Artistic way to encourage understanding of a conic section. Participants physically build an ellipse by choosing two foci and sketching the figure through a loop of string. While stitching an ...

Coronavirus trends
Johns Hopkins University of Medicine has a team that maintains current maps and data about the Coronavirus. They record changes and show trends of the virus activity throughout the World ...

National Donut Day
Two activities to help celebrate National Donut Day How many donuts is that = huge box of donuts to approximate. How have donuts changed = torus volume measurements, formula intuition, ...

I bought toilet paper online
Students use the pictures in this activity to approximate the size of this 16 roll package of bamboo toilet paper. They use comparison ratios with our Ruth Bader Ginsburg doll ...

A socially-distanced party
I risked infecting my friends or becoming infected myself by throwing a very small socially-distanced party. I served baked appetizers, disinfectant wipes, and latex gloves. I cooked while wearing clean ...

May 27th launch from the U.S. again
NASA and SpaceX plan to launch humans from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, to the International Space Station for the first time since July 11, 2011. This is a more current ...

Fish tale, go figure!
I have two fish in my aquarium. Betty is my white goldfish. She often stays really close to the front wall as she swims towards her food. Stripe, my clownfish, ...

Tiny vacuum with a huge reach
Wow! This vacuum can clean up to 2,800 square feet while using only one electrical outlet. How long must its cord be? ...

Sadly, Jorge passed away yesterday.
Jorge would have been 15 years old on May 5, 2020. We wondered how old that would have been in human years. Does that 7 times his dog years formula ...

Microns and Masks
How big is a coronavirus cell? How big is a micron? How well do these masks protect against the virus? What can you observe about the size of particles mentioned? ...

Stock Market headlines – Biggest losses since 2008
Biggest losses since 2008 - The Dow is measured in points but this decline can also be measured in the percentage lost. Which way was the Dow being measured when ...

World record Snickers Bar
This World Record Snickers Bar was created in late January at the Waco, Texas Mars Wrigley Plant. What proportions would be an accurate cross sections of this monster bar? How ...

Mixing colors with food dye
It's time to dye eggs ... or make a rainbow colored cake. Proportions, saturation, hue and shade ...

Hoarding stopped!
A Danish market found an interesting way to limit hoarding of hand sanitizer. How much are these costs in your currency? What is the unit price on these bottles? By ...

Pascal coloring and modular math
Clock math, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,1,2,3,4,5,6,7... is modular math. Let your students learn about the usefulness of modular math as they color and explore Pascal's Triangle. Very pretty math! ...

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 ...

Is there much of a difference between 99.9% or 99.999%?
Use our present need for cleanliness to engage your students. Does it really matter whether you kill 99.9% of the bacteria or 99.999% of the germs? In this activity, we've ...

Which gasoline is the cheapest?
A comparison of gasoline in Greece, priced at Euros per liter, and gas in Massachusetts at dollars per gallon. Price and liquid volume conversion using unit fractions ...

How many delegates does each state get to send to the Democratic Convention?
Students reason about the meaning of this formula. They evaluate the formula for South Dakota and their state of choice to understand the weight of each state's power in choosing ...

Gonna be a Leap Year
This year we will add the 29th of February to our year? Why do we do that? How can you tell? What if we didn't add a day every 4 ...

K-Pop and BTS, how much can they earn from Youtube and Spotify?
How much could this K-pop group possibly earn on Youtube and Spotify? Unit ratio calculations. BTS ...

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; ...

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 ...

Expensive Super Bowl ads
What will a 30-second Super Bowl ad cost this year? Next year? In the future? How would you describe this rise in cost? ...

How steep is this treadmill?
In this very short activity, students get a memorable way to visualize a zero slope and an undefined slope ...

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 ...

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? ...

Three wrapping presents activities
3 activities about wrapping presents: On the diagonal, 3-act by estimation with iPhone, and judging sizes and needs by estimation with man and shopping basket ...

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? ...

The Forever Roll
Why would anyone need such a big roll of toilet paper? How does it compare to Charmin's other toilet paper products? If this roll lasts for one month, how big ...

How should I cook my turkey?
Bake it, deep fry it or barbecue it? When do I have to wake up to begin preparations? How long will the cooking take? How much will it cost? How many ...

How many Smashburgers?
There must be a million ways to craft one of these burgers. How many ways do you think that there are? ...

Eliud Kipchoge runs marathon in 1:59:40.2
How have record marathon runs changed through the years? Will those record times keep being broken? Does the data help you predict? ...

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 ...

How long will it take you to trick-or-treat?
It's Halloween and this is your neighborhood. How long will it take you to trick or treat at every house in your neighborhood? Possible conversation with students: How long will ...

How Much Halloween Candy Will You Collect?
Students consider how to determine the best candy haul prediction. The math ideas of measurement error and percent error are introduced. Students then predict their own Halloween candy collections numbers ...

Make a costume from a sheet
I'm going to make a costume pattern to sell. People can buy my plan and make awesome, long, full, scary, ghost costumes. This scheme will be so simple. Perhaps I'll ...

How much should the 40-oz size cost?
We found this chalkboard menu at a coffee shop recently. The shop had prices for the 12-oz (small), 16-oz (medium) and 20-ounce (large) cappuccinos. And they will also make you ...

Largest coffee, new world record
The world record for the largest cup of coffee was recently set (see picture above). In this activity students explore scale, similar figures, volume and measurement as they estimate the ...

15 NFL Math activities!
Do teams that spend a lot win a lot? - Students compare team wins with team salaries in the four major North American sports ... the NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL ...

When will he use up his chocolate milk account?
Brian's son buys chocolate milk every few days to go with his lunch. His school creates an invoice that they send to parents every month that show the status of ...

Drill bit fractions
Act One: Drill bits are measured by the diameter of the bit in inches. The drill bits below are ordered left to right in increasing size. The numerators in the ...

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 ...

So just print some more money!
What's the big deal with our deficit? Do we actually borrow money to cover our debt? If we do, imagine the interest charges? Help your students (and their families) understand ...

Who’s going back to school?
Updated! Students look at the past and present populations of the U.S. and the past and present population of school attendees to calculate the percentage of the population that are ...

Stacking Jack
Act One: Check out the video slide show. What questions do you have? The Activity: Stacking Jack Suggested Question: How many different ways can I stack Jack? That is, how many ...

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 ...

Are original movies better than their sequels?
We've gathered some data on movie ratings and their sequels and asked students to analyze the data, decide on some analysis and debate (with their mathematical data) which are better ...

Bears Ears revisited
There is some beautiful land in Utah that was changed last year from federally protected land to Utah overseen land. The buttes of Bears Ears (shown above) and the surrounding ...

Point of view
If you have a set of cubes for your classroom, this would make a great group hands-on project. Its an old puzzle but the activity deserves a revisit. Below are ...

How can Nike give away so much great stuff?
Worldwide Nike supports many teams and athletes. They design, manufacture, and supply gear for almost every sport imaginable. How much are those give-aways worth? Is the company going to go ...

Spiraling squares – compass and straight edge
Can you see the many spirals in this design? Students calculate the size of each increasing round of squares and consider what sort of spirals these must be. The activity: ...

NHL Playoff games can sure last a long time!
Revised! We're watching another Stanley Cup playoff now. Will there be any really long games during the playoffs? In 2013, a Stanley Cup playoff match between the Bruins and Blackhawks ...

Tornadoes 2019
Tornadoes have devastated the Midwest, U.S. in the last few days. Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Mississippi have been brutally hit with these powerful events. Involve ...

Wow, everything must be free!
What happens when you take 50% off again after taking 50% off at first? Students examine this retailer trick of giving double discounts. What happens to the price when you ...

Opening Weekend – Avengers: Endgame
Can you tell from its opening weekend how much the new movie, Avengers: Endgame, might earn in theaters? This activity can be used anytime and is especially timely when there ...

How long would it take to build this underground house and pool?
The building of this underground house and pool was presented by Cayote Person and his partner, Mark Lavins, on their youtube channel, "Brave Wilderness." At BraveWilderness.com the business partners post animal ...

Are baseball games getting longer?
March 28th was opening day for this year's Major League Baseball season. It's a good time for some Major League Baseball math! In this activity students think about how major ...

Huge Key Lime pie
More for π Day! On a cold and snowy day in Boston, two chefs created a huge Key Lime pie to remind the frozen people of the Northeast how ...

Value of a lifetime of Whoppers?
Locked in a smelly bathroom for one hour and then promised a lifetime of Whopper meals, an Oregon man sued BK when the manager's promise was withdrawn. How much money ...

President’s Pay for Presidents’ Day
The President's have only received a pay increase 5 times in the United States. Picture it with a step graph. Calculate the actual salary using the CPI (Consumer Price Index) ...

Pythagorean Triples and coloring
Pythagorean triples are not only handy for students to recognize but produce some interesting and lovely patterns. We've combined a little coloring with our Pythagorean Triple pattern investigation to let ...

Choosing the NBA All-Star team
Updated for 2020! The weekend of February 14 - 16 will be all about the NBA All-Stars. The two team captains are Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks) and LeBron James (Los Angeles ...

Checking in on LeBron
Now the that season is underway let’s check in on how Cleveland and the Lakers are doing since LeBron changed teams. LeBron is arguably the best player in the NBA ...

Huge diamond found in Canada
552-carat diamond found in Diavik Mine, Northwest Territories, Canada Can you tell just how big this gem is? Do you know how big a carat is? What would this look ...

New Horizons spacecraft just flew by a really distant asteroid
On January 1st, 2019, the New Horizons spacecraft passed close to Ultima Thule, a Kuiper Belt object that's a billion miles beyond Pluto. That milestone marked the most distant celestial ...

Digesting a Lego head
If you know the mean of data what does that tell you about the data's total ... with poop and a Lego head ...

Moneymaking holiday movies
Which movie do you think is the highest grossing holiday movie of all time? Students analyze holiday movie data. They will round, estimate, compare, calculate percent increase, consider the most ...

Weird wing prices
Clicking on this image will show it larger in a new window. Danny's Wok in Philadelphia has a huge price list for ordering their famous chicken wings. Why did they ...

Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade 2019
As we get ready for next week's holiday, students can study a map of the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, describe, measure and hypothesize why this route was chosen ...

Consumer spending 2018
Consumers in the U.S. spend a lot of money. In this activity we look at historical data to see if there are any patterns in our spending. How does our ...

Extra point or 2-point conversion – Updated
In 2015 the NFL changed the extra point kick distance to 33 yards and now teams have a tough decision to make, go for one or two points? The ...

Fantasy Football
In the midst of another NFL season, we introduce students to Fantasy Football. Students first calculate football points given touchdowns, yardage gains and interceptions. They are then challenged to generalize ...

Sol LeWitt’s pyramid – How might you count those blocks?
Sol LeWitt (1928 - 2007) was a an American artist involved in Conceptual art and Minimalism. This structure is housed in the garden of the Hirshhorn Museum on the National ...

Nike’s latest bet
Nike has just chosen a surprising person to represent the 30th anniversary of their slogan, "Just Do It". Colin Kaepernick, past quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, has been a ...

Madden Glitch
It's the talk of the town. Madden video games have had some issues. Check this one out. Here's one that has Le'Veon Bell seeming to fly from the Bear's goal ...

“Wild Boars” soccer team rescue – Incredible
Can you imagine being stuck in the dark for such a long time? How do all of the numbers play out? In this activity, students get a chance to talk ...

Now that LeBron James is becoming an L. A. Laker, will this company go broke?
Fanatics is an online sportswear retailer that has promised to accept jersey returns if your chosen player makes a team switch. In this activity student try to calculate how much ...

Encouraging bats might be better than using bug repellant
Bats eat mosquitoes ... lots of mosquitoes. Students compare a bat's weight to how much he can consume in one night. They calculate how much they would need to eat ...

Fibonacci coloring
Let your students simply enjoy coloring our designs or artistically play with the whole creation of Φ designs. Simply coloring our Fibonacci patterns might allow students to ponder the Fibonacci ...

Impress your parents at dinner
This activity is the first in our series on mental math tricks. Let your students develop their own individual way of mentally multiplying by 0.5, 5, 50, 500, and so ...

What are the odds that Justify can win the Triple Crown?
Justify has won the Triple Crown. He's the 13th horse to ever win all three races ... Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes. Amazing! How do you calculate compound ...

Will Damarious Randall have to pay big?
Warriors won the NBA Championships. Randall won't have to buy jerseys! The Cleveland Brown's safety player, Damarious Randall, posted this tweet. Its been very popular and retweeted a lot. How ...

More eruptions on Hawai’i’s Kilauea
The Volcano Kilauea is continuing to spew molten lava and ash on the island of Hawai'i. This volcano is on the tip of the southern most Hawaiian Island. Is that ...

Prince Harry and Meghan Markel’s Royal Wedding
This weekend is the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markel. This will be quite an event and we can expect it to dominate the media. What have you heard ...

Who had the greatest NBA season ever?
Updated for 2019! In 2017 Russel Westbrook had one of the most dominating seasons ever, averaging a trip!e double per game. James Harden lit up the league in 2018 and ...

Boeing 787 draws an airplane over the United States
Recently, pilots of a Boeing 787 testing a new set of Rolls Royce engines, fulfilled their FAA required long-distance endurance requirement in an unusual way. The Boeing pilots decided to have ...

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 ...

How fast can you run?
In preparation for the Boston Marathon, we thought that an analysis of running speeds might be appropriate.Have you heard of The Six Million Dollar Man? He was the character in ...

Jackie Robinson
April 15th, 1947 was a date to remember. Jackie Robinson became the first African-American baseball player to play in Major League Baseball since the game was segregated in the 1890s ...

What me? Irrational?
We've found that some students believe that the approximation that their calculators show for irrational numbers is exact. Here's an activity that you can advertise as long multiplication review. After ...

Pizza party figuring
In this activity students decide how to divide 2 pizzas amongst 6 adults and 3 pizzas amongst 8 kids. Fractional pizza parts need to be drawn and considerations discussed about ...

Want to earn $150,000? – Mersenne prime search
What's a Mersenne prime? How hard could it be to find the next one? Why are there only 50 known Mersenne primes? What's with $150,000? ...

Olympic rankings
Check out the two images of the 2008 summer Olympic medal counts. What do you notice? The Olympic Games are competitions between athletes in individual or team events and are ...

Big Air snowboarding
Graphic generously supplied by GraphicNews.com Starting February 18th a new Olympic sport will be televised ... Big Air Snowboarding. Some of your students may be officianados of snowboarding. Using this ...

Super Bowl ads and scientific notation
Let your students revisit and reflect on the interesting commercials with this scientific notation activity. Students practice using scientific notation as they calculate the cost of Super Bowl commercials. After ...

Winter Olympics, PyeongChang: February 9 – 25
Scoring Ski jumping - The scoring rubric for each of the Olympic events is intended to eliminate the possibility of scoring bias from the judges. Let your students learn more about the ...

How many wings did the Bills send the Bengals?
On December 31st, 2017, the Cincinnati Bengals beat the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens' loss clinched the Buffalo Bills' rise to the AFC playoffs. The Bills sent a thank-you gift of ...

Greasing light poles
The Philadelphia police were being proactive about keeping their enthusiastic Eagles fans from being reckless as they celebrated their 2018 Super Bowl win. So, the police departments frosted the city ...

Cost of hosting Olympic games
Clicking on this image will show it larger in a new window. Hosting the Olympics sure does cost a lot. Why is that? How much money is $5 billion dollars? ...

The Olympic Torch trip in South Korea
On October 24, 2017, the Olympic flame was captured on Mount Olympus, Greece. (Lighting the Olympic Torch). That flame lit one of this year's Olympic Torches and the Torch relay ...

Is this promo a good deal?
McDonald's was offering an "Arch Card" special deal. If you bought an Arch Card for $100 you were entitled to a free BigMac or EggMcMuffin every week for a full ...

Spiraling triples
Let students explore the patterns of perfect squares and Pythagorean Triples as they analyze our piece of art and decide why the resulting construction looks like spiraling squares. For a ...

Is my son going to win … again?
My son's pretty young but is he still going to whoop me? We were playing Monopoly Junior. Can you decide who will win? In this activity use addition and/or multiplication ...

Hands of “Support”
Lorenzo Quinn, an Italian sculptor, created and temporarily installed this piece of art entitled "Support" in Venice. Quinn used his own children's hands to design this piece. His intention was ...

Holiday candy sales
Which holidays are associated with candy? For which of those holidays is the most candy sold? What percents of annual candy sales does each holiday contribute? Consider using some independent think ...

Population Clock
Click here to see the Population Clock bigger in a new window. How in the world does this clock conclude that there is a net gain in the United States ...

Water saving toilets
How much water is used? How much water could be saved? The activity: PottyTime-SavingWater.pdf CCSS: 5.MD.1, 5.NBT.7, 6.RP.3, 7.RP.3, MP2 ...

Immigration numbers
Here's an opportunity to work with calculating percents and the percent changes in the U.S. immigrant population. Students can reflect on what those changes demonstrate. Start your class with this ...

Uh oh! Am I going to run out of data?
Let your students consider the graphic first individually and then in groups of your choosing before handing out the activity sheet. This might be an excellent beginnng-of-the-year, get-to-know-each-other task! The ...

Should I get the Big One?
Let your students decide if the BIG one is a fair deal. Click on the pic to enlarge and post on the wall. Have kids pick a sandwich. Which size ...

Layla’s antibiotics
The dosage of Layla's medication was confusing to our friend Kim. How many days was she supposed to give Layla the meds? How many pills does she need to cut ...

Will the new iPhone sales be huge?
Apple just announced their new, 10th anniversary, iPhones, the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X. These phones will soon be in stores, the iPhone 8 comes out on September 22, ...

BIG Snickers bar
Wow! This snickers bar is huge! Act 1 - Big question = How many times bigger than a regular Snickers bar is this? What info would you like to know? How ...

How much does the biggest Lego set ever cost?
Note: This is a remake of our 2014 "How Much Does a Lego Cost" activity How much could the Lego Millennium Falcon cost? Student first make a guess and then ...

Total solar eclipse – apparent sizes
Where will the eclipse be seen? What if you are not in the path of totality? Total solar eclipse? What is apparent size? How can the moon seem to cover ...

Giant iceberg breaks off from Antarctica
The crack in Antarctica's Larson C ice shelf has been growing for years. Has the speed of the rift's growth stayed about the same? increased? decreased? Do the math and ...

Drinks at the Fair
At the amusement park, our friend, Jason, was intrigued with this sign for drink deals. He and his family come often to the park and, during the summer when it ...

Fireworks on your calculator
Students practice moving parabolas and making them higher or skinnier to make a great fireworks display ...

How many cars are there?
I came home from work to find that my son had his cars organized in a tight parking lot on our front porch. How many cars are there? Is it ...

Saving Water Bottles
In my grocery store they now have these new water bottle refilling stations. You can simply refill your own container with water instead of buying a six-pack of bottled water ...
