Curated OER
Math Challenges
Students engage their critical thinking skills to solve challenging math problems. In these problem solving lessons, student work with tessellations, weights/measurement, reasoning, surface area, geometric shapes, and algebraic procedures.
Illustrative Mathematics
US Garbage, Version 1
An interesting example of a discrete function and how it is applies to the real world. This could easily make a good collaborative lesson with an environmental science class. Practice reading a table and drawing a scatter plot make up...
Illustrative Mathematics
Equal Area Triangles on the Same Base II
A deceptively simple question setup leads to a number of attack methods and a surprisingly sophisticated solution set in this open-ended problem. Young geometers of different strengths can go about defining the solutions graphically,...
Henrico County Public Schools
Factoring Puzzle
Factoring polynomials is an essential part of writing equivalent expressions and algebraic problem solving. Here is a card game that serves an engaging activity for reviewing factoring of polynomials.
District 158
Plan an Adventure
For kids, taking a vacation is all fun and games, but after completing this pre-algebra project, they'll have a whole new appreciation for the planning that makes these trips possible. Given a budget of $5,000 to spend on purchasing the...
Annenberg Foundation
Skeeters Are Overrunning the World
Skeeters are used to model linear and exponential population growth in a wonderfully organized lesson plan including teachers' and students' notes, an assignment, graphs, tables, and equations. Filled with constant deep-reaching...
Noyce Foundation
Double Down
Double the dog ears, double the fun. Five problems provide increasing challenges with non-linear growth. Topics include dog ears, family trees and population data, and geometric patterns.
Illustrative Mathematics
Paying the Rent
Learning how a bank account works is a useful tool. The exercise in the resource is to deduct rent from a checking account and create an equation from a description. Participants then graph the balance of the bank account versus months...
Curated OER
Triangles Inscribed in a Circle
Are you tired of answers without understanding? Learners can give a correct response, but do they really understand the concept? Have young mathematicians think deeper about linear functions, angles, and formulas in algebra. Learners are...
Illustrative Mathematics
Writing Expressions
Practice writing algebraic expressions from written phrases. The objective is to consider two seemingly similar phrases, write them as algebraic expressions, and then simplify using the order of operations. Learners are challenged to...
5280 Math
More or Less the Same
Tell the story of the math. Given a graph of a linear system, learners write a story that models the graph before crafting the corresponding functions. Graphs intersect at an estimated point, allowing for different variations in the...
5280 Math
Go with the Flow
Round and round they go ... where they stop, only scholars will know. By writing systems of equations, classes determine the number of cars a roundabout can handle given specific constraints. Systems use up to six variables and become...
Curated OER
Odd or Even
Children are told that an odd number is one that does not have a partner and an even number is one that has a partner. It's not the way I would explain it, but no matter, the activity and worksheet are still good. Children analyze each...
Curated OER
Seeing Dots
Your algebra learners interpret algebraic expressions, in order to compare their structures, using a geometric context. They also discern how the two expressions are equivalent and represent a pattern geometrically and algebraically.
Illustrative Mathematics
An Integer Identity
Challenge algebra learners to use the difference of cubes to solve this problem. Once your charges have taken out the factor (a - b), combined the like terms and set them equal to zero, the problem becomes a factorable quadratic...
Illustrative Mathematics
The Physics Professor
Help mathematicians see that a formula found in a physics book has an algebraic structure. Though the formula given in the resource looks complicated, learners are to break down the expressions and interpret each part separately....
5280 Math
Factory Functions
Solve a real-life problem using function-building skills. Presented with an open-ended question, scholars complete a checklist to create and justify a solution in an interesting algebra project. The checklist asks for justifications of...
Illustrative Mathematics
Sammy's Chipmunk and Squirrel Observations
Here is a fun project. Sammy observes a chipmunk and a squirrel to see how many holes each needs in order to stash the same number of acorns. Scholars could find the answer algebraically or create a table to analyze the problem in...
Curated OER
How does the solution change?
Four simple equations, each with two variables, try to get at the important question of reasoning about equations. The problem isn't to solve the equations, but to understand the nature of their solutions. These equations address the...
Illustrative Mathematics
Triangular Tables
Somewhat of a puzzle, this problem gets pre-algebra preteens to write an expression representing a seating chart using triangle-shaped tables. This single task is an applicable lesson for meeting sixth grade Common Core math standards....
Curated OER
Is This a Rectangle?
How do you show that something is a rectangle? This activity starts with four coordinate points and asks young geometers to explain whether they create a rectangle. Knowledge from both geometry and algebra come into play here, as well...
Curated OER
Global Positioning System I
Geometry learners touch the surface of how a global positioning system works. The end goal is to find the intersections of three different spheres geometrically and algebraically given their algebraic representations.
Curated OER
Triangle Series
Your algebra learners emphasize the"geometric" in geometric series as they use a common ratio between algebraic terms and find that it corresponds to a repeated similarity transformation.
Illustrative Mathematics
Morning Walk
Sometimes young algebra learners don't understand why they need to create an equation when they can just figure out the answer with it. This activity tries to encourage creating simple equations by balancing the use of more complicated...