Thirteen provocative activities for this holiday season of Thanksgiving, football, and shopping.
Thanksgiving, football, shopping and giving
Tag: 5.NF
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 I buy? Engage your students in estimation, multiplication of fractions and proportional reasoning.
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 grow at a smaller percentage, will all Americans soon be celebrating Halloween?
Will I have enough stuff?
We have 2 activities for National S’mores Day. (1) Number of ingredients to buy with no waste for all of my guests! (2) Building the 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?
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 their parents in diapers and consider how much they will…
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, conserving resources, awareness of climate change and protecting our planet.…
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, or dyeing eggs. They look for and create equivalent ratios…
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.
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 math here?
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%…
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 need an activity) they find out how much someone owes…
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 must have been and consider how long it would take their family to eat the entire world-record burger.
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 pricing and recycling activity.
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 know?