One of our first projects this year in Pre-Algebra was to interview an adult to see how they used math in their lives. Students brought back some wonderful answers. One student’s work is attached, showing how her mother uses math in many different ways.
After this project, we continued the year with several types of graphs. Students studied bar graphs, scatter plots, and histograms. They created line graphs based on the weather in Mexico City. Through this project, they discovered the importance of the x-axis and y-axis. They also made circle graphs about how they spend their time. This project helped students understand degrees in a circle, and percentages.
Students have also learned about measures of central tendency. They calculated grades and salaries using mean, median, and mode. Along with this, students did several activities involving spinners and dice, to find probability. Also, students took on the persona of a math detective, and used the Four Step Problem Solving Plan. Students discovered how this process can be useful in solving many types of problems.
Through many of the concepts covered, we include not only the mathematical side of things, but also try to relate the topic to current events, and items of interest to the students. One of the favorite class activities is graph paper battleship. Students use the coordinate system to graph ordered pairs, all while they “sink the battleship.”
Most recently, students have been looking more closely at integers. We have seen positives and negatives, and reviewed how to graph numbers using a number line. We are beginning to add and subtract positive and negative integers. Included are two students’ drawings. The first illustrates how climbing stairs can represent adding positive and negative integers. The second shows a ballerina, falling gracefully, displaying the subtraction of height.
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