Equations in the Real World
Students will create and solve equations with variables on one side before comparing the equation with another to determine at what rate they will be equal.
Circuit Designers
Students will work in small groups of two to three on a structured challenge around circuits which includes requirements such as including using a switch or a conductor. They will then use that knowledge to work on a collaborative challenge to solve a relevant problem related to elephant poaching. Students will create a containment system that will have an alarm system, a lighting system, and a way to pass through. Finally, they will review the other projects and discuss similarities and differences in the design.
Cooking Up Word Problems
Students rotate through four stations, collaboratively utilizing different strategies and manipulatives to analyze, explore, solve, and generate real-world culinary problem situations.
Are You in Your Place?
Students will be able to use concrete and pictorial models to compose and decompose numbers with place value.
Fractions with Multi-Step Problems
Students will be able to work collaboratively while baking to find the least common multiples of fractions with unlike denominators and create equivalent fractions, then add or subtract.
Got Force?
Students use various surfaces and a weighted car to see how far the car will travel using balanced and unbalanced forces.
Earth’s Movements
Students will work in small collaborative groups to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth as it revolves around the Sun which creates a day and night cycle.
Place Value Party
In learning stations, students prepare for a birthday party by using their knowledge of place value to compose, decompose, and represent numbers using standard, word, and expanded forms.
Solving Word Problems with Friends
Students will work in groups and solve one-step word problems using a protocol to guide their thinking.
Particular Polygons
Students will be able to classify 2D figures by analyzing their attributes.
Step Into the Problem: A Strategy for Visualizing a Math Problem
Teachers will show students a tool to help them understand a problem situation. The tool called Step into the Problem, will walk students through the steps of comprehending a problem: Read the problem, Turn and Talk, Act it Out, Notice and Wonder, and Reflect. Students will be given a problem situation and will go through the steps to show that they understand the problem situation.
Roll With It
Students will experience a hands-on lesson regarding ratios. While doing this, students will deepen their understanding of the concepts of ratios.
Teacher during Introduction
Puzzling Place Value
Students work collaboratively with a variety of different manipulatives to compose and decompose numbers in more than one way.
Four Representations of Linear Relationships
Given one representation of a linear relationship, students will create a poster displaying the other three representations of linear relationships.
Analyzing Bar Graphs: Candy Machines
Working in groups, students will examine a bag of candy to determine if the machine that bags the candy is working properly. They will organize data on the colors of the candy in a frequency table and a bar graph. They will calculate the fraction of each color in the bag and compare the fractions to a quota set up by the factory to determine if the machine needs maintenance. Students will create a report about their findings, write a question that requires students to interpret data represented in a bar graph, and reflect in their journals.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Vertical Alignment
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to the unit and Research Lesson. The highlighted student expectation(s) is the chosen focus for the Research Lesson.
How Does the Cookie Crumble?
Students will self-discover how to multiply mixed numbers by using background knowledge of estimation, computations, and real world application of a recipe.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills Related to the Unit
In fifth grade, students will be able to multiply and divide whole numbers, which will lead into multiplication and division of decimals in sixth grade. That same year, they will model products and quotients of decimals to the hundredths place. This concrete model will lead them to a better understanding of the algorithm in fifth and sixth grade.
As fifth graders, students will model multiplication and division of a fraction and a whole number. The following year, students are expected to multiply and divide all types of fractions.
In addition, during sixth grade, students are introduced to integers (negative whole numbers) and will be able to model and solve all operations with integers. All of the skills previously stated will lead students to be able to perform all operations of rational numbers without models (positive and negative fractions, decimals, and whole numbers) in seventh grade.
Click below to learn more about the TEKS related to this unit. The highlighted standards have been chosen for this research lesson.
Concert Trip to Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado
Students will evaluate and interpret data from both tabular and graphical forms to create a linear equation in either the form of direct variation (y=kx) or slope-intercept form (y = mx + b). Students will then use their findings to interpret the meaning of both slope and y-intercept using a real-world relationship in word form.
Using Measures of Center and Spread to Summarize Data
Students will be able to use the measures of center and spread of a set of data to make summary statements regarding the applications of the data.
Biotic and Abiotic Factors of an Ecosystem
Students will explore abiotic and biotic factors in various ecosystems by working through stations. Students will be able to identify and describe abiotic and biotic factors within an ecosystem.
Convergent Plate Boundaries
Students will design and test models that will identify crustal features formed by convergent plate boundaries.