I know I’ve blogged about this before, but seriously, you can really turn anything into a math problem!
I recently read a blog post by @raspberryberet3 about teaching financial literacy in the classroom and I couldn’t agree more! Even better, let’s get into the habit as parents of pointing out situations when we use math in our daily lives. I realize I’m a math teacher and sometimes my problems are a S-T-R-E-T-C-H for practical applications, but it does get us talking about math in different ways. Below are a few ways I talk about math with the #spadyboys.
- I always point out geometry vocabulary while driving. It’s not uncommon for me to pull off on the side of the road to take a picture of an object with lots of geometric terms. This one is one of my favorites! Can you see the quadrilaterals, triangles, transversals and supplementary angles?
I have a collection of pictures here: http://tinyurl.com/geopicswg and recently I had my pre-algebra students use these pictures and @explainevrythng on their iPad to define and highlight the “Geometry Around Us.” It was much better than writing down a bunch of definitions in a notebook. Check out Tyler’s example here: https://youtu.be/aDcRaVMiTa8
I’m excited about some of the new vocabulary ideas I learned from @rwootenits at NETA this past week! There are lots of tools and resources we can use to make the vocabulary much more meaningful for our students.
- My favorite place to take the #spadyboys is the @DollarTree. Before we get to the checkout, they have to calculate the sales tax. Food isn’t taxed so they have to figure out how many non-food items we have. Then, if it’s 7% sales tax, that’s $0.07 for every dollar we spend. They often have the total calculated before the checker scans all the items.
- Percents show up everywhere! When I read @raspberryberet3‘s blog post, I immediately thought of my awesome shoe deal at @DSWShoeLovers last month. The shoes shown at the top of this page were originally $60.00 marked down to $39.94 on the yellow sticker. The yellow sticker meant that I could take an additional 80% off! What was the final price for the shoes? Figure it out and leave a comment below! Whenever I can, I stress that we don’t always need calculators or tip cards to figure out percents. With a little rounding and estimating and moving decimal places, we can do it all mentally!
- I have a fascination with palindromes and get super excited when my odometer (currently at 159710 miles) reads a palindrome. Not only does it make for a cool pattern of numbers, but we can also figure out when the next palindrome will take place. BTW…how many more miles do I have to drive in order to reach a palindrome? Palindromes pop up all the time on the clock! Even my 5-year-old is getting the hang of it!
You truly can turn anything into a math problem. Whether it’s a practical application of percents or a fun pattern of numbers that create a palindrome, let’s work on turning the #mathcurse into #mathopportunities!
Take Me out to the Ball Game! The baseball/softball season is upon us and what better way to prepare for the fun than by studying the ways in which math is used in these fine sports.
