Author: Jon Orr

MEL3E – Day 12

by Jon Orr

Our warm today was from wouldyourathermath.com. This warm up piqued their interest quite a bit. We did a gut check….and most of the class wanted the quarters. In their pairs they went to the vertical surfaces to show some evidence to support their decisions.

We looked up the thickness of a quarter (.175 cm) and they chose their tallest person to measure so they could compare.

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I wanted us to not only look at some costs involved with travelling but introduce calculating tax on items. So I kept the collaborative work going with some Agree or Disagree statements.
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We looked up what a bus pass costs for a student.

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Again they went to the vertical boards to work through this problem. I had to review with a few of them how to calculate a percent of a number.

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What I loved about this problem was the talk that was happening. Students were verbally comparing the advantages and disadvantages of using the bus vs. renting a car. Listing advantages and disadvantages is one of our expectations but it was nice to see the talk instead of us listing them down in a workbook or worksheet.

We continued the decision making with a few more agree or disagree statements.

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Click to download the PDF

We ran out of time just as the majority of students finished the page.

MEL3E – Day 11

by Jon Orr

So I was away from class today. My little broke her arm while doing the monkey bars and we spent the day getting a brace! 

This is what my class was supposed to have done with the supply teacher. 

They’ll complete the worksheet below on converting times by time zone and from the 24 hour clock to 12 hour clock. 

When they complete that they are to work on their mastery work using FreshGrade. 

MEL3E – Day 10

by Jon Orr

Today’s warm up was a look back at some of last week’s ideas but with an open question spin on it. screen-shot-2016-09-19-at-12-43-59-pm

For warm ups students go to the vertical whiteboards or blackboard and work together. They are only allowed one marker. After a few minutes of work I yell out “switch marker”. They are supposed to pass the marker to their partner….and keep working together. Passing the marker keeps from one person writing all of the work and promotes discussion.

Most students completed a solution like the one below. They picked the hours worked…but started with $1000. Some groups chose their own hourly rate and built up the bi-weekly pay. A few groups had to adjust their hourly rates to keep the bi-weekly pay under $1000.

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We picked up where we left off on Friday and finished researching flights to San Francisco in about a half hour.

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For the remainder of class we talked about time zones. I displayed the World Clock from my iPad.

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I then presented them with some screen shots from my phone with some missing values. They had to determine the missing values on their desks.

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We ran out of time here…..so tomorrow we’ll work on the rest of the time zone/24 hour clock exercises and then start researching train and bus routes to San Francisco.

 

Energy Bites! – 3 Act Math

by Jon Orr

Today I made our go to snack…..peanut butter bites. My kids eat these up like crazy. I turned the making into a math task.

Act 1:

Ask for what they notice and what they wonder?

The intended question here is: How many energy bites will be made?

Have them guess. Too high…too low….best guess.

Ask for what information we would need.

Act 2:

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They may notice that the ball is not quite lined up right. How will the adjust?

and

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Is the bite a perfect sphere? Will a sphere be good enough? Give them the volume of a sphere formula. Let them work.

You students may notice the dimensions of the bowl…..or also may notice that its filled up to the 500ml mark. An interesting task will be to calculate the number of bites using either the volume using the dimensions or the volume using the measuring cup.

Act 3: The reveal

Possible sequel question:

What would be the diameter of the giant Peanut Butter Ball if all 22 were mashed together?

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And now for the recipe….as requested by Meg Craig!


Link