We came up with lots of questions (assuming that he made 7p per pack of ornage juice and that he only bought orange juice- it could go simultaneous if you add extra products)
An extra 10 points were awarded for any graphs and use of algebra per question
– How many orange juice cartons did he buy?
– How many did he buy per day?
– Write the computer program that could work out the cost of the voucher (and work out if you get a voucher!)
– How many swimming pools could he fill (we used basic 25m dimensions) and to how high?
– How long would it take to drink all the juice?
(extra points for graphs showing different drinking rates, inverse proportion was used when i said he could have as many friends as he liked helping him)

ANd more I can’t remember. Thanks for the idea, I’ll use it regularly now!

Anyway thank you for sharing all your ideas – they are bringing a new refreshing element to my class and to how I think about teaching mathematics – your ideas in a very low income middle school are keeping me and my students going this last month of school.

http://www.ninjakiwi.com/Games/Puzzle/Play/Guesstimation.html

Can you use this to help young kids learn to guess better? I’m not sure.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by pmacoun: A great spin on the old “how many s are in the jar?” activity: http://ow.ly/1pd3D…

Think of your most worthwhile learning experiences. For me, none of them involve notetaking or being lost in a sea of bullet points. They are learning [I]experiences[/I]…meaning I had a chance to interact with the concepts and form a concrete link to them.

For example, take this year’s Algebra 2 class. I had an engineer form Edwards Air Force Base come down and wow them with stories of the Global Hawk, cool pictures, and two-wheeled robots controlled by a TI-84 Plus (www.smallrobot.com). Each student was given a robot and meter stick, and through some probing questions, were asked to see if they could determine the speed of their robot. Even my smartest sophomores had trouble linking the activity with D=RT.

But, now if I need to ask them about D=RT, I can say “Do you remember the robots?” instead of, “Do you remember that slide that I put up with the cool white background…yeah that one…remember what the 2nd bullet said?” Which one would you more easily remember?

agree. but the aim of your class is not to have an hour of good behaviour.

totally admit i do the same thing and will often give routine, immediate near mindless tasks at the start of a lesson to get them settled.