Miles

I have made the big move from Boston to Florida in this last week. As I thought about my math blog and how I could put real world math problems into my classroom I thought of miles. We drove about 1300 miles on our trip. We stopped in two different places. An activity my students could do would be to pick a starting place on the US map and an ending place. From there they would have to choose two pit stops to take. Students would estimate the miles using the scale between each stop. Once they have each stop measured out to the the mile they would add up all of the miles to see how many total miles it would take to get from point A to point B. You could even tie this into a writing assignment to have students explain WHY they would want to go from point A to B and why they would stop where they would along the way.

I like the idea of making math about real things that students can relate to. You think about when we use math in our every day life. Telling time, getting grocereries, mailing packages, driving and travel. There are so many things that our students can relate to. Hopefully by using topics students enjoy they will be more engaged in the activity. You could always say... "Find the miles between Minnesota to Boston with a stop in Wisconsin and a stop in New York." That's fine and dandy BUT don't you think the students would be so much more engaged if they could plan their OWN trip to where THEY would want to go???

Coming up with new and fun ways to teach math to students can be tough, but with the help of other teachers and sharing each others great ideas we can benefit our students so much more!



Where do your students want to go????