Illustrative Mathematics
Sum and Difference Angle Formulas
Need practice deriving trigonometric angle formulas? With this worksheet, pupils derive the sum and difference formulas for cosine and tangent and the difference formula for sine. Scholars use the sine sum formula and other known...
Illustrative Mathematics
Building a General Quadratic Function
Rewrite a quadratic function to easily see the transformations involved. The instructional task takes a general quadratic function and rewrites it into a form that shows the translations and scaling of the parent quadratic function. The...
Illustrative Mathematics
What's the Point?
Given a certain amount of points, how many line segments can you connect between them? How many close geometric figures can you create? These are the types of questions learners are asked to solve in a assessment-based instructional...
Illustrative Mathematics
Solving Two Equations in Two Unknowns
More than just a one-problem resource, learners must explain their answer and incorporate a writing component to mathematical thinking. The resource also includes an explanation of the solution to help with the reasoning.
Illustrative Mathematics
Maria’s Marbles
Ali has more marbles than Maria in some of these word problems, while in others Maria has more marbles than Ali. First graders are tasked to read each word problem and solve how many marbles each girl has.
Illustrative Mathematics
Ordering Time
Practice telling time to the nearest five minutes in a digital and analog clock activity. Learners are prompted to order clock cards in increasing time order, and then write the time each clock represents.
Education Development Center
Writing Numerical Expressions—Hexagon Tables
Explore a basic pattern to practice writing expressions. In collaborative groups, learners examine a contextual pattern and write an expression to model it. The task encourages groups to describe the pattern in multiple ways.
Education Development Center
Choosing Samples
What makes a good sample? Your classes collaborate to answer this question through a task involving areas of rectangles. Given a set of 100 rectangles, they sample a set of five rectangles to estimate the average area of the figures. The...
Education Development Center
Finding Parallelogram Vertices
Four is the perfect number—if you're talking about parallelograms. Scholars determine a possible fourth vertex of a parallelogram in the coordinate plane given the coordinates of three vertices. They read a conversation...
August House
The Drum
Take a journey to India with a read aloud of The Drum: A Folktale from India by Rob Cleveland. Make connections to the story's theme by building and practicing drums, role playing story characters, and practicing skills in phonics, math,...
Curated OER
Greek Barbie or Action Figure
Young historians bring Greek mythology to the twenty-first century with this engaging research project. Hired to create a Barbie doll or action figure modeled after a Greek god or goddess, students gather the information necessary to...
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...
Curated OER
Animal Brains
Do big bodies make big brains? Let your learners decide whether there is an association between body weight and brain weight by putting the data from different animals into a scatterplot. They can remove any outliers and then make a line...
Scholasic
The Magic School Bus and the Missing Tooth
We chew with our teeth every day, but how much do we really know about them? Allow Ms. Frizzle to teach your kids a thing or two about teeth. Kids complete a prereading exercise, read the book, and respond to several prompts about the...
Illustrative Mathematics
Satellite
Learners practice relating rules of trigonometry and properties of circles. With a few simplifying assumptions such as a perfectly round earth, young mathematicians calculate the lengths of various paths between satellite and...
Illustrative Mathematics
Bank Shot
Young geometers become pool sharks in this analysis of the angles and lengths of a trick shot. By using angles of incidence and reflection to develop similar triangles, learners plan the exact placement of balls to make the shot....
Curated OER
Susan's Choice
Young economists explore opportunity cost by counting how much money Susan has in her piggy bank. From here, they are challenged to help Susan make a choice about what she can buy with her money.
Illustrative Mathematics
Which Function?
Throw some logic into quadratics and see if learners can match a vague graph to multiple equations. Young mathematicians must look at quadrant location, vertices, and intercepts to best match the graph to one or more equations.
Illustrative Mathematics
Running Time
Ever wonder why that computer image takes so long to load? Well, math is involved and provides the algorithms needed to compute the measure in nanoseconds. Young mathematicians plug the image measures into the formulas and compare the...
Illustrative Mathematics
Springboard Dive
Quadratics and height application problems go hand in hand like teenagers and sleeping in. High schoolers must look at the equation of a diver's height and calculate such features as the height of dive board, time entering the water, and...
Illustrative Mathematics
Modeling London's Population
Looking at London's population from 1801–1961 in 20 year increments, high school mathematicians determine if the data can be modeled by a given logistic growth equation. They explain their thinking and determine the values of each...
Illustrative Mathematics
Party Favors
Pia is putting stickers into party bags. She starts by putting 10 stickers in each bag, and over the course of a week she adds several bundles of ten stickers to each bag, as well as making more bags. Second graders must find the number...
Illustrative Mathematics
Comparing Money Raised
How much money did Helen, Sandra, Nita, Luis, and Anthony raise? Compare their amounts with a task that asks learners to answer questions like how many times as much?
Illustrative Mathematics
Comparing Sums of Unit Fractions
First, add each set of fractions with unlike denominators. Then, compare their sums with the symbols <, >, or =.