Pre-K-2
In this activity, students choose a picture and use all seven tangram pieces to fill in the outline. They describe and visualize what figures look like when they are transformed through rotations, reflections, or translations, and are put together or taken apart in different ways. This activity helps students to develop their spatial memory and spatial visualization skills, to recognize and apply transformations, and to become more precise in their use of vocabulary about space. Students use an internet-based tool to explore tangram puzzles.
Pre-K-2
Students learn to pose mathematical questions about themselves and their surroundings through class. They gather data about eye color from their classmates and another class within their school. They organize this data to answer questions.
Pre-K-2
In this lesson, students work with data to complete an organized chart by doubling or halving numbers. Then, they compare data using vertical and horizontal bar graphs.
Pre-K-2
This lesson emphasizes the connections between science and mathematics
by using a performance, or authentic, assessment format. Students have
the opportunity to explore applications involving their own heart. This
lesson was adapted from the article, "Ideas: The Beat of Your Heart,"
by Lisa M. Passarello and Francis (Skip) Fennell, which appeared in
The Arithmetic Teacher Vol.39, No.6 (February, 1992) pp. 32-39.
Pre-K-2
In this lesson for grades 1‑2, students balance pairs of like and
unlike objects by changing distance from the fulcrum. Students use a
crayon (as the fulcrum) and a ruler to represent the balance.
6-8
In this lesson for grades 6‑8, students participate in activities in
which they focus on patterns and relations that can be developed from
the exploration of balance, mass, length of the mass arm, and the
position of the fulcrum. The focus of this lesson is the relationship
between the length of the arm and the mass of the objects.
Pre-K-2
In this lesson, students participate in activities to develop concepts of measurement and statistics. Students are asked to measure distances using non-standard units and to record their measurement in a bar graph. Then they are asked to make comparisons using the bar graph.
Pre-K-2
The following lesson introduces elementary students to subtraction. The
objective is to create a link between students' experiences and
mathematics. By the end of the lesson it is expected that students have
a deep understanding of subtraction and how it relates to their world.
This lesson was adapted from "Helping Students Understand Subtraction"
by Anita Page, which appeared in the November 1994
Teaching Children Mathematics, Vol. 1, No. 3.
Pre-K-2
In the following lesson, students participate in activities in which they focus on connections between mathematics and children's literature. Specifically, students use clues to sort and classify buttons.
Pre-K-2
Students read the poem "Shapes" from
A Light in the Attic, by
Shel Silverstein, and create their own illustration of the poem. In
this lesson, students explore geometric figures and positional words.
