Curated OER
Interesting Integers and Exciting Equations
An 80-page resource provides four lessons and all associated worksheets to teach middle schoolers about expressions and equations. The lessons are hands-on, using games, "integer chips," a balance and cubes, and cut and paste activities....
Curated OER
Ten Red Apples; The Five Senses
A clever lesson designed around an apple awaits your learners. Descriptive words are used to explain what they believe is inside a bag while using their five senses. Learners read the story The Apple Pie Tree and are introduced to the...
Curated OER
Mathematics in Bioengineering: Its Application for Today's Students
High schoolers explore the different fields of bioengineering. They will create and interpret graphs from cancel cells data. They then calculate the amount of drugs found in blood and eliminated by the body over time.
American Statistical Association
How Long is 30 Seconds?
Is time on your side? Pupils come up with an experiment to test whether their classmates can guess how long it takes for 30 seconds to elapse. They divide the class data into two groups, create box-and-whisker plots, and analyze the...
Curated OER
Cruising
Cruise ships offer many engaging opportunities for real-world math adventures. These large, floating cities use resources with numbers into the thousands place. Young mathematicians are asked to calculate numerical information...
Illustrative Mathematics
Assessing Reading Numbers
Youngsters develop their number sense by rote counting from one to ten. Over time, they identify the numbers on their own and no longer rely on fixed recitation. Using numerical flashcards, a teacher will randomly choose numbers from the...
Illustrative Mathematics
Guess the Marbles in the Bag
Use this activity to help your class develop an understanding of greater than, less than, and equal to with numbers valued between 1 and 10. Secretly place a number of marbles (between 1 and 10) in a brown paper bag. Then shake the bag...
Illustrative Mathematics
Coupon Versus Discount
All too often stores give coupons for an item, but when you go into buy it, the item is on discount. The store won’t take the coupon if the discount is used. So what do you do, use the coupon or take the discount? This activity...
Illustrative Mathematics
Planes and Wheat
Understanding government spending is difficult. The number of variables can be enormous. In the corresponding resource, number crunchers are given one equation related to government spending with a number of variables. Your class is...
Illustrative Mathematics
Voting for Three, Variation 1
This is an opportunity for young mathematicians to apply reasoning to solve real-world problems with ratios. Even though there are three candidates for class president, students will only consider two at a time, making the first problem...
Illustrative Mathematics
What Shape Am I?
Sharpen your pencil and grab a ruler, it's time to draw some quadrilaterals! Given the definition of a parallelogram, rectangle, and rhombus, learners draw examples and nonexamples of each figure. The three definitions are...
Illustrative Mathematics
Christo’s Building
Hook your charges on how to solve a real-world art problem with mathematics by showing works of Christo. You can find eye-catching images on the Christo and Jeanne Claude webpage. Here, math learners help Jean Claude and Christo prepare...
Baylor College
What's Is Soil Made Of?
It's time to roll up those sleeves and get a little dirty in the second lesson plan of this series on the science of food. Investigate where plants and animals get the minerals they need to live in this two-part exploration of soil....
Curated OER
How Heavy
Break out the balances for this primary grade lesson on weight measurement. Using common elementary school manipulatives like unifix or snap cubes, young mathematicians determine the weight of four different classroom objects. A graphic...
Illustrative Mathematics
Weather Graph Data
Teaching young mathematicians about collecting and analyzing data allows for a variety of fun and engaging activities. Here, children observe the weather every day for a month, recording their observations in the form of a bar graph....
Curated OER
The Canoe Trip, Variation 1
Your river sportsmen will explore an example of paddling upstream as they build functions modeling speed and time in terms of the speed of the current. They then use their algebraic models to interpret features of the function related to...
Illustrative Mathematics
Right Triangles Inscribed in Circles II
So many times the characteristics of triangles are presented as a vocabulary-type of instructional activity, but in this activity they are key to unraveling a proof. A unique attack on proving that an inscribed angle that subtends a...
Illustrative Mathematics
How Many Cells Are in the Human Body?
Investigating the large numbers of science is the task in a simple but deep activity. Given a one-sentence problem set-up and some basic assumptions, the class sets off on an open-ended investigation that really gives some...
Willow Tree
Histograms and Venn Diagrams
There are many different options for graphing data, which can be overwhelming even for experienced mathematcians. This time, the focus is on histograms and Venn diagrams that highlight the frequency of a range of data and overlap of...
West Contra Costa Unified School District
Shifting Linear Equations in Function Notation
Time for a shift in thinking! Learners examine translations of linear functions. They use function notation to describe the translation and make connections to the graph.
California Academy of Science
Building Better Buses: Transportation Design Challenges
Scholars learn about a series of three challenges when they design a bus system for a small town. They determine the bus routes and then figure out the best type of fuel to use before considering the cost of going electric. Learners...
Curated OER
Nothing But Problems
Here is a fabulous lesson on problem solving in the mathematical world. In it, third and fourth graders get lots of great coaching on how to approach word problems, and how to best find a solution. They watch an episode of Reading...
Curated OER
Extra Credit: It’s No Fairy Tale
Young scholars discuss their knowledge of payday loans and credit cards. In this Economics lesson, students complete a read an article and Q&A activity in groups, and play a vocabulary bingo game and a quiz game on payday loans....
Curated OER
Orienteering
Everything you wanted to know about orienteering, and more! Take your class on an adventure with this creative activity. You will need to gather some supplies and materials and maps for your specific location, but the unit sounds like it...