Young geometers and biologists investigate the math of nature in an activity that is just the bee's knees. Participants will study the tessellations of hexagons in a beehive, along with the natural rationale behind the specific shape....

Your class will be very interested in the results of this activity. How long does it take a MP3 and video game player to charge?  Sam only has an hour and the MP3 player only has 40% of its battery life left. Plus, his video player...

Making banana pudding despite misplacing your one-cup measuring cup is easy as long as you can find your quarter-cup measuring cup! This real-life activity provides a good opportunity for learners to interpret division of a whole...

A simple question, with a not-so-simple answer. Working with whole and mixed number measurements in inches, feet, and yards presents a problem with many possible solutions. A great activity that challenges the minds of young...

Your young population scientists analyze a table of values, write a model to represent the real life data, finish the table of data and predict future populations in a collaborative, real-life activity.

Learners are designing a stunning new water feature for an aquarium, but they soon discover that more than just a pretty home for their fishy friends is required.  From calculating the volume of a composite shape through the...

Geometric volume calculations are brought into the real world in a quick set of application problems. Learners are asked to help a patient figure out how to drink a prescribed amount of water both at work and at home. This activity...

You can never have enough cookies, but do you have enough ingredients? This activity allows your bakers to discover how many batches of cookies they can make with the ingredients provided. Also useable as an independent assignment, your...

Here is an activity that is intended to highlight a very important issue about precision in reporting and understanding statements in a realistic scientific context. Discuss different ways of reporting the half life of Carbon 14...

The hunt is on! Send young mathematicians on a search for shapes in the first instructional activity of this two-part series. Each time a child finds a hidden shape, he draws it on his paper, and continues searching for the rest. Perform...

Seventh grade statisticians randomly select five states and then determine the mean area. The class then works together to create a dot plot of their results. 

Knowledge of statistics and probability can increase your advantage when playing games. The activity asks learners to analyze the game of MasterMind to determine the number of possible codes. They also examine different variations of the...

Let's use math to solve an argument. Jon and Charlie are debating about who can run farther, but who is right? That's what your class will figure out as they apply their understanding of fractions to this real-life situation. A simple,...

All too often stores give coupons for an item, but when you go into buy it, the item is on discount.  The store won’t take the coupon if the discount is used. So what do you do, use the coupon or take the discount? This activity...

Help Christina figure out how many chocolate and lemon candies she has with a lesson on decomposing numbers. When presenting this context to the class, the teacher chooses the total number of candies and the number that are chocolate,...

Take flight with a fun activity focused on graphing data on a coordinate plane. As learners study the data for Granny's hot-air balloon trip, including the time of day and the distance of the balloon from the ground, they practice...

How much land does a parcel hold? How much fertilizer does it take for a field of corn? Pupils answer these questions and more as they apply ratio reasoning and unit analysis. 

Who knew running a greenhouse required so much math? Amaze future mathematicians and farmers with the amount of unit conversions, ratio and proportional reasoning, and geometric applications involved by having them complete the...

What determines whether a function has an inverse? Learners investigate that criteria when they examine values in a partially completed input-output table for two different functions. The task is to complete the table so that one of the...

A real-world approach to common multiples asks learners to find different groups of flowers based on their multiples. Useable as a class activity or independent exercise, they will have to organize their thoughts to explain the totals of...

Red and yellow do not make orange in this activity, but they do create a real-life, multiplication of fractions word problem. As either a lead-in or an assessment, math masters display their understanding of 1/2 x 5/6 when a wall...

In this Easter quiz worksheet, students complete 9 multiple choice questions about Easter. Students may click on an "answer" button for immediate feedback. Worksheet is labeled as an ESL activity, but is not exclusive.