Virginia Department of Education
Distance and Midpoint Formulas
Small groups work through two guided activities to derive the distance and midpoint formulas for the coordinate plane. The activities begin with concrete examples and move to abstract.
Virginia Department of Education
Similar Triangles
Pupils work in pairs to investigate what it takes to prove that two triangles are similar. They work through various shortcuts to find which are enough to show a similarity relationship between the triangles. Small groups work with the...
Curated OER
Math Hunt
Go on a scavenger hunt around your school to find evidence of math. Investigate different areas of your school for patterns, fractions, and different geometric shapes. Finally, create a spreadsheet and plot the data you've collected.
Virginia Department of Education
Angles in Polygons
Polygons — it's all about the angles. Groups work with dynamic geometry software to find the sum of the measures of the angles of various polygons. After finding the information for several polygons, the groups generate a formula that...
BBC
Starship English and Math - Online Lesson Plans
Two online lessons, one in math and one in language arts, are here for you. In them, learners play online games which reinforce important skills in literacy and numeracy. The thing I like about both of these lessons is that they get the...
Curated OER
Math: The Cathedral Project
Second graders take a field trip to a nearby church or other historical building and examine it from a mathematical perspective. In groups, they calculate the seating capacity, describe the window patterns, differentiate types of...
Curated OER
Vacation Values: A Math WebQuest
Fifth graders participate in a Math Web Quest to research two vacation options for their "families" in order to determine the best mathematical value for their family. They gather data, create two comparison graphs based on that data,...
Curated OER
"Eggs-ploring" Math with Jellybeans
Learners work in pairs with a small bag of jellybeans to estimate the number of candies in their bags and then figure out how many groups of 10 jellybeans are contained in their bags. They then graph the information using a pictograph or...
Virginia Department of Education
Measuring Mania
Conversion immersion — it's measuring mania! A set of four activities teaches scholars to convert between customary and metric units. Resource covers unit conversions in length, temperature, weight/mass, and volume.
Curated OER
School Activities
First graders place some specific types of objects (e.g., shoes, favorite food) on concrete graphs and pictographs. They listen and respond to others in a variety of contexts (e.g., pay attention to the speaker; take turns speaking in a...
Noyce Foundation
Granny’s Balloon Trip
Take flight with a fun activity focused on graphing data on a coordinate plane. As learners study the data for Granny's hot-air balloon trip, including the time of day and the distance of the balloon from the ground, they practice...
Space Awareness
What is Time?
Does it ever seem like time is slipping through your fingers? Model the passing of time with an hourglass activity in which individuals determine whether hourglasses are the most efficient way to measure time.
Illustrative Mathematics
Fruit Salad
Playing with values in this fruit salad problem allows learners to find out how many cherries were mixed in. Your middle schoolers can organize their thoughts in a chart before going into the equation. Eigth graders can skip the chart...
Have Fun Teaching
Earth Day Number Practice 0-20
How many trees can your pupils plant? Practice numbers 0-20 with several related activities. For the first, kids match images of trees to numbers. They then match the number symbols to number words, using a word bank. The final activity...
PBS
The Lowdown — Rot and Rubbish: The Rancid Truth about How Much Food We Waste
Compare waste a percent at a time. The resource contains an infographic on food waste. Using images, the informative activity describes the amount and types of food waste that occur. Pupils compare the percentage of waste from their...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Classifying Complex Numbers
Imaginary numbers are a real thing. Scholars learn about complex numbers, real numbers, and imaginary numbers. They classify given numbers as strictly complex, strictly real, or strictly imaginary in an individual or group activity.
Illustrative Mathematics
Christina's Candies
Help Christina figure out how many chocolate and lemon candies she has with a lesson on decomposing numbers. When presenting this context to the class, the teacher chooses the total number of candies and the number that are chocolate,...
Illustrative Mathematics
Sort and Count
Young mathematicians are on their feet and moving around in this primary grade sorting activity. After giving each child an object or picture card, they then sort themselves into groups, counting to see which has the most or least...
Illustrative Mathematics
Sort and Count II
Capture the engagement of young mathematicians with this hands-on sorting activity. Given a bag of objects, students work independently sorting the items based on their physical attributes, counting to determine the size of each group....
EngageNY
Piecewise and Step Functions in Context
Looking for an application for step functions? This activity uses real data to examine piecewise step functions. Groups create a list of data from varying scenarios and create a model to use to make recommendations to increase...
EngageNY
The Opposite of a Number's Opposite
It's said that opposites attract, but what about opposites of opposites? Individuals learn about the opposite of opposites using number lines. They complete a group activity in which members determine the opposite of opposites of...
US Department of Commerce
Make Data Speak
Data displays are more than just a bunch of numbers. Small groups access census results and create eye-catching data displays. Teams choose a statistic and collect data points for five locations. Classmates present their infographics to...
EngageNY
Analyzing a Data Set
Through discussions and journaling, classmates determine methods to associate types of functions with data presented in a table. Small groups then work with examples and exercises to refine their methods and find functions that work...
Education Development Center
Logic of Fractions
Before diving into operations with fractions, learners discover the foundation of fractions and how they interact with one another. Exactly as the title says, logic of fractions is the main goal of a resource that shows pupils how...