The One With Unit Rates

We have been working on ratios and unit rates for about a week now in 6th grade.

They are making me crazy.

If I am working a problem my students can tell me exactly what to do.

If they come to the board and work a problem, they get it right 95% of the time.

Ask them to do it on their own though and you would think I was asking them to solve a Calculus problem.

So I did what any teacher would do.  I went to Pinterest for a wonderful lesson that would make this click for my students.

I found this pin.

Click on the pic to go to the pin.

I loved the idea of having my students write out the steps.  I hoped that would clear up their confusion.

I picked up some Dollar General Sales Papers and put my students in pairs.

I asked each student to choose 2 items from the sales paper and write the steps for calculating the unit price.

Then they put their 2 items with their partner's 2 items on a poster.

I think they turned out great!!  

The One With Ratios

We started our unit on ratios yesterday in 6th grade.

I use something called Mathalicious as my curriculum.  Mathalicious is all online and has some great real-world lessons.  You can check out some of their lessons for free.

As wonderful as Mathalicious is, it cannot be a stand alone curriculum.  I needed something to introduce ratios to my students before I dove into the first activity I had planned from Mathalicious.

I went straight to Pinterest.

What did we do before Pinterest? 

Seriously.

I found two things that I thought would be great and they did not disappoint.

We started by watching this little clip from The Andy Griffith show.

I'm pretty sure I thought this was much funnier than my students did.  Oh well!  Still a fun introduction.

Next on the agenda was Froot Loop Ratios.

I found this activity here. 

I pretty much kept exactly what she did, but added some things of my own.  I was afraid the original activity would not fill my alotted time so I added some problems from some old math books I have in my room.

I also added a section where students get to choose things in the room to compare and write five ratios of their choice for things in the classroom.

This activity was a HUGE hit with my students.  Of course it helped that I allowed them to eat their cereal once we finished the math.

It was a fun way to introduce ratios and I feel like my students really got it.

The One With Skip Counting

Do your students struggle with their multiplication facts or skip counting?

My students struggle with certain facts - sixes are especially hard for them.

Last week when it was time to line up for lunch I decided to try something new.  I was pleasantly surprised when my students LOVED it and asked to do it every time we line up.

We decided to skip count by six as we lined up. 

I began by saying 6.

I then randomly selected a student.  That student gave the next number and then lined up.  In this case the student said 12.

We continued this until all 27 students were lined up.  

One of the students pointed out that we just did all the multiplication facts of six up to 28.

They were pretty proud of themselves.

I was pretty proud of them.

We will continue to skip count by 6 until we can do it without even thinking about it and then we will move on to a new number.

The One in September

I'm a few days late, but I can't skip out on a Currently so here we go.