Math Lessons
Factors and Codes: First Names (Episode 2)
Scrambled up somewhere in 161,000 is a first name. Can you find it!?
Factors and Codes (Episode 1)
Let’s use factors to encode and decode words.
Crossing Every Bridge Exactly Once (aka Eulerian Paths)
How can you cross each bridge in this city exactly once?
Polar Weather Report
The North Pole hits -40°. The South Pole hits -60°. Calculate the averages, graph the data, and deliver your polar weather report.
Special Gifts with Special Requirements
Your special friends sure have some unique gift needs!
What’s the Pattern? Fraction Addition
Can your students figure out how to add fractions by looking for a pattern?
Olympics: Medals by Population
Do big countries always have the most medals? Which smaller countries rank surprisingly high in the Olympics?
Olympics: Winter vs Summer Medal Count
Which country has a great balance between their summer and winter Olympic medals?
Mow A Lawn
How long would it take to mow a very large lawn with a push-mower?
Fizz Buzz: A Counting and Divisibility Game
Ready for a tricky counting and divisibility game?
How Many Ways: Fraction Subtraction 234
How many different ways can you make this fraction subtraction statement true using only the digits one through nine?
How Many Ways: Fraction Addition 234
How many different ways can you make this fraction addition statement true using only the digits one through nine?
How Many Ways: Fractions Divide Equals 2/3
One equation. Digits one through nine. How many ways can you make it work?
How Many Ways: Fractions Multiply 2/3
How many different ways can you make this fraction multiplication statement true using only the digits one through nine?
How Many Ways: Divide Fractions Equal 1/4
How many different ways can you make this fraction division math statement true using only the digits one through nine?
How Many Ways: Multiply Fractions Equal 1/4
One equation. Digits one through nine. How many ways can you make it work?
How Many Ways: Fraction Subtraction Equals 1/2
How many different ways can you make this math statement true using only the digits zero through nine?
Looping Grid Art
Pick a few numbers, draw some corresponding lines on grid paper, and you’ll end up with some interesting, looping math-y art!
How Many Will There Be? Pyramids
Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.
How Many Will There Be? Sliced Circles
Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.
How Many Will There Be? Xs and Os
Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.
How Many Will There Be? Desks
Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.
How Many Will There Be? Stairs
Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.
How Many Will There Be? Flowers
These flowers sure are getting bigger faster! How large will they be in step 10? What about step 50?
Cram
Try this a simple (but surprisingly strategic) grid-filling game!
Addition: 3 Digits Plus 2 Digits (Multiple Solutions)
Typical practice problems don’t move students up Bloom’s Taxonomy. With this framework, you’ll see kids stop and really think about how to approach multi-digit addition.
Math Game: Heaps
Try this a simple (but surprisingly strategic) subtraction game!
Create Your Own Operation
The commutative and associative properties are a whole lot more interesting when you apply them to a mathematical operation that you created!
Disneyland Parking Structure Math Project
Your students will use estimation strategies to figure out how many parking spots are there in the parking structure at Disneyland? And you bet I reveal the real answer!
Parentheses: How big of a change can they make!?
Two tiny parentheses. One expression. How big of a change can they make? Bigger than you think.
How Many Ways: Fraction Equivalence
How many different ways can you make this math statement true using only the digits one through nine?
How Many Ways: Times Equals Minus
How many different ways can you make this math statement true using only the digits one through nine?
How Many Ways: Times Equals Times
How many different ways can you make this math statement true using only the digits one through nine?
How Many Ways: Order of Operations 1
How many different ways can you make this math statement true using only the digits one through nine?
How Many Ways: 2 Digits ÷ 1 Digit = 1 Digit
How many different ways can you make this math statement true using only the digits one through nine?
Fraction Ordering Tournament
Which set of fractions would be the trickiest to order from least to greatest? Let’s have a tournament!
Writing A Story About Fraction Equivalence
When fractions take on a new denominator, it’s as if they’re wearing a disguise – same value, new look. So let’s write a story about fraction equivalence starring a fraction who needs to fit in with a new group.
Same Perimeter, Different Area For Rectangles
Can two rectangles have the same perimeter but… different areas!?
Undoing Multiplication With Division
Multiplication and division, natural foes, are constantly seeking to undo each other. Students will attempt to reverse the effects of multiplication by dividing once, twice, or even thrice!
Calculators, Patterns, and Multiplying By Decimals
Before teaching students the procedure for multiplying with decimals, how much can they intuitively glean from a structured play session with calculators?
Rounding Numbers (But Not To 10)
What could we possibly do to make rounding more interesting for students who already get it? In this series, students consider how they might round to values other than “the nearest 10.” How, for example, do we round to the nearest 9? 7? 15?
Math Curiosity: Four Squares
Every positive integer can be written as the sum of (at most) four perfect squares!
Math Curiosity: Magic Squares
Imagine a 3×3 square in which every row, column, and diagonal have the same sum. That’s a magic square!
Math Curiosity: The Coloring Problem
No video gets me more email from students! How few colors can you use to color in any map so that no two, neighboring regions are the same color?
Why Is Our Calendar So Weird!?
Why are there 12 months? Why don’t weeks fit into months evenly? Why don’t weeks fit into the year evenly? What’s going on with the calendar!
Grouping Quadrilaterals In A Hierarchy
Can we classify quadrilaterals like we classify living things?
Deducing the Area of Triangles
Using patterns, students try to deduce where that area formula came from.
Finding The Volume of Laptops
How has the volume of laptops changed over time? You know you want to check out how huge those first versions were!
What Does it Cost to Fill a Car with Other Liquids
Is gas actually that expensive? What if we filled a car up with… orange juice?
Math Curiosity: Odds & Squares
Why does the sum of the first 5 odds also equal 5 squared?
Investigating Cost of Living
Would you save money if you lived in Las Vegas and commuted every day to San Francisco?
Doubling Dollars
Say you have a dollar. Say you can double that dollar each day: $1, $2, $4, and so on. How long will it take to reach… one million dollars? Not as long as you might think!
Fractals: Sierpinski’s Triangle
What if this triangle pattern just kept repeating… forever!?
Fractals: Koch Snowflake
You could keep zooming in on this snowflake forever!
A Donut Investigation
In this cross-curricular investigation, students will look into an intriguing question: do donuts or salads have more sugar? They’ll grapple with misleading information, bias, and use their math skills to create a visual representation of sugar in popular foods.
Math Curiosity: Waring’s Conjecture
So, can you write every odd (greater than 3) as the sum of three primes?
A Caffeine Investigation – Part 3
Caffeine is everywhere. But what are the ads really saying? Analyze the claims, then create your own public service announcement.
A Caffeine Investigation – Part 2
What do people know about the amount of caffeine in common beverages?
Math Curiosity: Primes and Squares
Can any perfect square be written as the sum of two primes?
What Do Mean and Median Mean?
When will mean and median give us different results?
Math Curiosity: Finding Primes
Prime numbers are unpredictable! How can we possibly find them all? An Ancient Greek mathematician found one way!
Math Curiosity: Twin Primes
What do you call two prime numbers who are very close together?
Persuasion and Packaging: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos
How does a drink’s packaging affect us emotionally and logically?
Visualizing Fraction Multiplication
What does it look like to multiply fractions?
Percents and Credit Cards
Let’s buy something expensive with a credit card and then make only the minumum payments!
A Visual Guide To Dividing By Fractions
Have you ever wondered what it looks like to divide by a fraction, man?
Analyze and Create Misleading Graphs
Let’s make some intentionally bad graphs to learn how to spot poorly made graphs.
How Many Students Can Fit On The Playground?
So… just how many kids could we cram onto the playground?
Math Curiosity: Palindromic Number Conjecture
Using this one weird trick, it seems that you can turn any number into a palindrome!
Math Curiosity: Collatz Conjecture
The Collatz Conjecture: start with any number and get to 1 using just two rules. It seems to always work…
Furnishing A Hotel
Design and furnish hotel rooms on a budget. Real math, real constraints, real decisions. Then pitch your hotel to investors.
A Grid-Based Fraction Project
You’ve got 60 spaces on a grid to create an amusement park, a house, a farm, or whatever you’d like. Divide it into seven pieces, order it by size, combine into two halves, and more in this fraction project.
Math Project: What If I Bought Apple Stock Instead?
What if you had an original iPod and sold it compared to if you had bought the equivalent amount of Apple stock and sold that?