Browsed by
Category: Grades 3-5

Halloween Literature in the Math Classroom

Halloween Literature in the Math Classroom

This book is TOO FUN! The illustrations alone are priceless. It’s a Halloween twist on the traditional The 12 Days of Christmas song. I always like to read the story first without too many interruptions. Although, be sure to have the students see if they can find the dog on each of the pages! They love that. Then we get into the math. With my younger students, we use Unifix cubes to determine the total number of gifts on day…

Read More Read More

Project-based Learning: Soda Can Redesign, a Lesson on Volume

Project-based Learning: Soda Can Redesign, a Lesson on Volume

This is a fun lesson I do with sixth graders where students redesign the soda can. After reviewing volume of rectangular prisms, students determine the volume of a can of soda in cubic inches. They use this volume to re-design the soda can so that their can has the same volume. Students will need to use the area of polygons such as rectangles, triangles, parallelograms, and trapezoids in the design of their new can. They begin by creating a net…

Read More Read More

Project-Based Learning: Surface Area and Volume Formulas for Rectangular Prisms

Project-Based Learning: Surface Area and Volume Formulas for Rectangular Prisms

This is a fun project I do with fifth graders where students take on the role of Senior Designer at Packagings R Us. They will need to design the perfect box (rectangular prism) for an item that they will be bringing in. Their box will be “shipped” to Australia so they will need to consider the fragility of their item when designing the box and determine appropriate packing material. An extension is to have students do a cost analysis for…

Read More Read More

Equivalent Fractions on the Multiplication Matrix

Equivalent Fractions on the Multiplication Matrix

I’d been staring at equivalent fractions for eons and never knew it. Check out this multiplication matrix filled with them! Way cool! Starting simply, look at the first two rows in the upper left.  The number in the first row (numberator) is ‘1’ and the number in the second row (denominator) is ‘2’.  Those numbers represent the fraction 1/2.  All the numbers in the two rows to the right reflect the equivalent fractions. This works for any two numbers picked…

Read More Read More