Illustrative Mathematics
Cooking with the Whole Cup
Whoops! Travis accidentally put too much butter into the recipe. Your bakers must find out how to alter the recipe to accommodate different changes by using unit rates and ratios . The activity has multiple parts and calculations with...
Illustrative Mathematics
Riding at a Constant Speed, Assessment Variation
Practice ratios and unit rates with tracking how long Lin took to ride her bike. Provided with different questions, your mathematicians can assemble their answers using a chart or setting up ratios. The activity is included in a set of...
Illustrative Mathematics
The Escalator, Assessment Variation
A great way to practice with unit rates, the activity gives your mathematicians an opportunity to compare different statements and select which are true. They can practice with "choose all that apply" by setting each statement into its...
Illustrative Mathematics
Heads or Tails
Heads! A great way to practice probability is to flip a coin in class. The provided data allows your mathematicians to predict the probability of heads in ten coin flips. Bring coins to class and allow your own trial of heads or tails....
Illustrative Mathematics
Comparing Speeds in Graphs and Equations
Compare two different proportional relationships on a graph. It is up to your mathematicians to determine which of two moving objects have greater speed. A good example of a Common Core multiple choice question.
Illustrative Mathematics
Track Practice
And they're off! While two runners are at track practice, your mathematicians' job is to find out who leaves the other in the dust. The activity provides a variety of data that can be computed into unit rates for comparisons. Available...
Illustrative Mathematics
Mr. Brigg's Class Likes Math
A quick discussion question that brings some collaboration into your classroom will allow your thinkers to make a decision about sampling. Mr. Briggs wants to know if the results from his class are a valuable comparison to the entire...
Illustrative Mathematics
Molly's Run
A simple lesson with a lot of support behind it. Your learners will find out how long it takes Molly to run a mile by choosing their solution method. The activity can be used as a lesson or as an independent assignment. Preface with...
Illustrative Mathematics
Games at Recess
A great non-calculation problem that lets your math minds explore without the pressure of the right answer. Your learners will have to compare boys and girls playing soccer and jump rope during recess. How many more boys than girls are...
Illustrative Mathematics
Fruit Salad
Playing with values in this fruit salad problem allows learners to find out how many cherries were mixed in. Your middle schoolers can organize their thoughts in a chart before going into the equation. Eigth graders can skip the chart...
Illustrative Mathematics
It's Warmer in Miami
Brrrr it's cold in Alaska! When given the temperatures of Anchorage and Miami in the winter, your mathematicians will calculate how much warmer it is in Miami. Answer key provides two different solution choices. Great as a warm-up for...
Illustrative Mathematics
Buying Gas
A quick problem to test your middle schoolers' knowledge of dividing with decimals. Also a good practice of unit rates, they must compute the cost of one gallon of gas when given the total amount for a fill up. Can be used as a preface...
Illustrative Mathematics
Baking Cookies
You can never have enough cookies, but do you have enough ingredients? This activity allows your bakers to discover how many batches of cookies they can make with the ingredients provided. Also useable as an independent assignment, your...
Curated OER
Ant and Elephant
Have you ever wondered how many ants make up an elephant? Inquisitive minds will be amazed as they use scientific notation to compute and compare the mass of an elephant to an ant. Have participants make guesses and see how close they...
Illustrative Mathematics
Cell Phone Plans
Turn your classroom into a local cell phone store. Then, have your cell phone agents use linear equations to visually display three cell plans and their advantages. It makes for a great group project. Discuss how to decide which plan is...
Illustrative Mathematics
Coffee by the Pound
This is a great exercise in graphing proportional quantities to interpret the unit rate as the slope of a graph. It is not easy for learners to understand what a unit rate is. When it is presented as the slope of a linear line graph,...
Illustrative Mathematics
Discounted Books
Adolescents love to shop, especially when an item is discounted. Here, shoppers only have a set amount of money to spend. Will they be able to make a purchase with the discount and tax added in? Percent discounts can be calculated...
Illustrative Mathematics
The Djinni’s Offer
The djinni in this resource offers gold coins. Learners use the properties of exponents to make their decision as one offer increases exponentially. This makes a great group project. As the commentary suggests, start by having groups...
Illustrative Mathematics
Placing a Square Root on the Number Line
There are many ways to approach finding the rational approximation of an unknown square root. Here is a problem that will help math learners make a connection between square roots and their order on a number line. As usual, determine two...
Illustrative Mathematics
Converting Decimal Representations of Rational Numbers to Fraction Representations
A rational number is a ratio of two integers. Discuss with your class how to convert the rational numbers of repeating decimals to fractions. A good commentary on letting x equal the repeating decimal and multiplying each side of such...
Illustrative Mathematics
Calculating and Rounding Numbers
Mathematicians need to know that not all numbers are rational. We approximate irrational number with rational numbers. That is why a calculator may be misleading. This task give learners an opportunity to see how rounding a number and...
Illustrative Mathematics
Area of a Trapezoid
Here is a straightforward example of how to apply the Pythagorean Theorem to find an unknown side-length of a trapezoid. Commentary gives additional information on proving that the inside of the trapezoid is a rectangle, but is...
Illustrative Mathematics
Velocity vs. Distance
At the end of this activity, your number crunchers will have a better understanding as to how to describe graphs of velocity versus time and distance versus time. It is easy for learners to misinterpret graphs of velocity, so have them...
Illustrative Mathematics
US Garbage, Version 1
An interesting example of a discrete function and how it is applies to the real world. This could easily make a good collaborative lesson with an environmental science class. Practice reading a table and drawing a scatter plot make up...