Education World
Pumpkin Puzzler
Light the Halloween festivities with an exercise that connects math, physical science, and language arts. After watching a demonstration of a burning candle, learners use division, multiplication, or algebra to determine how many boxes...
PBS
Population Simulation with M&M's
Math and M&Ms® go great together when introducing a modeling activity. Allow your learners to simulate population growth and decay of fish in a pond and share their reasoning for the change in fish. With such an impact we have on our...
Redefining Progress
Have and Have-Not
Is there a correlation between a country's wealth and the extent of its ecological footprint? What exactly constitutes an ecological footprint, and how does one country stack up against the rest? This is a unique lesson to incorporate...
Curated OER
A Tour of Jaffa
Use the age-old Traveling Salesman Problem to introduce Hamilton circuits to your young travelers. Individuals then plan an efficient route to visit all the places they want to go.
Math Warehouse
Theoretical Probability Activity
If you keep rolling a die, you'll roll a five exactly one-sixth of the time—right? A probability lesson prompts young mathematicians to roll a die 100 times and use the data to calculate empirical probabilities. They then compare these...
Practical Money Skills
Cars and Loans
Most teenagers want to buy a car, but do they know how much it really costs? Calculate the cost of purchasing a car, securing auto insurance, and maintaining the new investment with a thorough and engaging personal finance lesson.
Beyond Benign
House Project Overview
What does your perfect house look like? Pupils design a sustainable house given certain specifications. They create concept maps that detail the math skills they need to use while considering their designs.
PBS
Adventures With The Fish Pond: Population Modeling
Build up from the previous activity where your learners charted the population growth and decay of a fish pond with M&Ms®. Have them look at the data from that activity and create a Now-Next, or recursive equations, to predict the...
Pala Software
MathBoard
Do you want to practice arithmetic skills from simple addition facts, to cubes and square roots, to solving one-step equations? Here is a great app for practicing and learning everything from arithmetic practice using integers to solving...
Reardon Problem Solving Gifts
Teaching Problem Solving Strategies in the 5-12 Curriculum
Address any kind of math concept or problem with a series of problem-solving strategies. Over 12 days of different activities and increasing skills, learners practice different ways to solve problems, check their answers, and reflect...
Illustrative Mathematics
Selling Computers
A quick activity to test your learners' knowledge of percent increase. When an electronic store needs a 30% increase in computer sales, your mathematicians must calculate how many computers they need to sell next month.
Education World
Predicting Pumpkins
If you want more pumpkin seeds, you should get a bigger pumpkin—right? Young harvesters use estimation skills to make a hypothesis about how many seeds they will find in a pumpkin before examining the real number inside.
Illustrative Mathematics
Return to Fred's Fun Factory (with 50 Cents)
The penny arcade gets the statistics treatment in this fun probability investigation. A non-standard game of chance is described and then the class is set loose to find missing probabilities, determine common outcomes, and evaluate...
National Research Center for Career and Technical Education
Architecture and Construction: Stair Construction
Within the context of the construction industry, algebra pros begin to calculate slope from the sizes of stair steps. This is a terrific lesson, especially for aspiring engineers. Just be aware that it might be a stretch to meet all of...
Curated OER
20 Field Day Activities Any Kid Can Do (And Do Well!)
Learners participate in activities in which they practice their physical skills. They work together on some of the activities to practice mental skills as well. They show their team spirit as the winners are announced.
Curated OER
Be a "Peder-Reader" - A Discovery Activity
Young scholars investigate millipedes. In this math and physics lesson plan, students examine the millipede's physical structure and characteristics by observing its behavior in given activities. Pupils will hypothesize whether they...
Curated OER
"Visual Fractions" Game
Students compete for the best score in a variety of online activities related to fractions. Using the Web-based tool "Visual Fractions," they reinforce various fraction-related skills.
Yummy Math
Diapers
Most of your learners probably think a car or college is the first big expense their parents could help them with, but as it turns out these kids have been costing their parents for their whole lives. Have they ever considered how much...
New York Science Teacher
Planet Scaling using Extra Terrestrial Tools
Your class will use a set scale to convert diameters of planets to the model size, the diagram given to expand on the number of planets drawn as concentric circles, and examine the scale that would be needed to fit the larger planets on...
Mathematics Assessment Project
Jane's TV
Jane wants a new television, but she's not sure what size to buy! Your middle schoolers can figure it out when they apply the Pythagorean theorem. Produced especially for meeting Common Core standards in geometry, this activity appeals...
Curated OER
The Trash We Pass
Where does our garbage go? What is the difference between a recyclable and non-recyclable item? Pose these important, but often overlooked, questions to your class and invite them to consider the lasting and damaging effects of the...
Northern Ireland Curriculum
Money Wise
Does money seem to slip through your middle schoolers' fingers? Encourage them to examine spending, saving, and budgeting habits with a unit on consumer skills and money management. Young spenders study the waste that occurs with school...
Mathematics Vision Project
Module 6: Congruence, Construction, and Proof
Trace the links between a variety of math concepts in this far-reaching unit. Ideas that seem very different on the outset (like the distance formula and rigid transformations) come together in very natural and logical ways. This unit...
Illustrative Mathematics
Setting Goals
Setting financial goals is a common occurrence in middle school that your learners can practice using this activity. They will be able to solve for how many hours Seth needs to work to save up for a skateboard, helmet, and trip. The...