ORC Resource Types

Discipline: Mathematics

Professional Commentary: This lesson is the second of four multi-level lessons that explore balance, mass, and the length of the mass arm. Students construct a simple pan balance and find the weight of small objects in "paper clips." In an extension of the lesson, they use their measurements to compare the weights of the objects....

Discipline: Mathematics

Professional Commentary: Using the story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" by Mark Twain, students simulate a jumping-frog contest and determine the distances "jumped." The students record the distance of individual jumps in centimeters and determine the total distance jumped (the sum of the three separate jumps) and the official distance (the straight-line distance from the starting line to the end of the frog's third jump). The students compare the range and median of the total distances with those of the official distances of the group....

Discipline: Mathematics

Professional Commentary: Students do some mathematics in preparation for making brownies. They consider the inverse relationship between the base area of two different sizes of cake pans and the thickness of the same volume of batter poured into each pan....

Discipline: Mathematics

Professional Commentary: This second lesson in a multi-level, multi-lesson site engages students in analyzing information represented in four simultaneous pictographs in which each block represents ten units. Students are asked to interpret and draw logical inferences from the graphs individually and collectively....

Discipline: Mathematics

Professional Commentary: This third lesson in a multi-level, multi-lesson site engages students in analyzing information presented in four circle graphs depicting the population of three states relative to the rest of the country in 1800, 1850, 1900, and 1950. Students are asked to interpret and draw logical inferences from the graphs individually and collectively....

Projects: Standards First

Discipline: Mathematics

Professional Commentary: This lesson is the first of three multi-topic lessons that focus on activities motivated by mathematically related stories from children's literature. The teacher reads the poem "Shapes" from A Light in the Attic, and students use cutouts or draw shapes to depict the story in the poem....

Discipline: Mathematics

Professional Commentary: This lesson is the second of three multi-topic lessons that focus on activities motivated by mathematically related stories from children's literature. Students read Counting on Frank, in which the narrator collects facts with the help of his dog, Frank....

Discipline: Mathematics

Professional Commentary: Students analyze passages from The Phantom Tollbooth to gain a deeper understanding of averages and then look for other uses of averages in the newspaper. An activity sheet and Internet extension are included....

Discipline: Mathematics

Professional Commentary: This lesson is the last of three multi-topic lessons that focus on activities motivated by mathematically related stories from children's literature. Students read How Big Is a Foot? and then construct different beds, all measuring 3 feet by 6 feet, using different sizes of feet....

Projects: Standards First

Discipline: Mathematics

Professional Commentary: In this first of five lessons related to football, students identify geometric shapes on a football field. Some of the shapes are overlapping or rotated in orientation....