6th Grade Honors 09-10'

What Do You Think?

2010-05-13T11:29:00.001-07:00

What DO YOU THINK?!?! Help Others, Help Yourself!
Rules of the game: Provided your peers with feedback.
-You must review TWO websites in every Grade Level =SIX websites Per Person!

-You must answer the following questions FOR EVERY WEBSITE & STATE YOUR EVIDENCE!

-What does state your evidence mean?!?! State your evidence means you must give a detailed explanation for why you think what you think. You may NOT only say, “They did a good job!” or “It was horrible!” You must back up your thoughts with evidence about WHY they did a good job.

Questions:

Who are you talking about?
•    State the initials and grade level of the authors.

What do you think of the content?
•    How was the quality of the math?
•    Was it easy to understand?

Did it grab your attention?
•    What did you think of the graphics?
•    Did it make you want to do math (or at least try it out)?

What suggestions do you have?
•    What suggestions would you give to the authors?
•    What was the best part of the site?
•    What part of the site needed improvement?

What about the rubric?
•    Did they follow the rubric?
•    What section did they do the best on?
•    What section did they need to improve on?

What grade would you give you site?
•    A – B – C – D – F (and why)?

Three Monkeys

2010-04-01T12:43:00.004-07:00

Three monkeys walk into a motel on the Planet of the Apes and ask for a room. The desk clerk says a room costs 30 bananas, so each monkey pays 10 bananas towards the cost.

Later, the clerk realizes he made a mistake, that the room should have been 25 bananas. He calls the bellboy over and asks him to refund the other 5 bananas to the 3 monkeys. The bellboy, not wanting to make a mess dividing the 5 bananas three ways, decides to lie about the price, refunding each monkey 1 banana, keeping the other 2 bananas for himself. Ultimately each monkey paid 9 bananas towards the room and the bellboy got 2 bananas, for a total of 29 bananas. But the original charge was 30 bananas.

Where did the extra 1 banana go?

Fire Drill At 1:00pm today

2010-02-26T12:46:00.003-07:00

Fire Drill At 1:00pm today! Now proceed to today's blog and be ready at a little before one. ;-)

Ms. L.

Burger Bucks

2010-02-25T21:34:00.010-07:00

Parents are often more than happy to point out how much cheaper things were when they were a kid. This is referred to as the “when I was a kid,” syndrome. Even my mom likes to tell me about the diner she went to in the 1950’s. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard the story about how you could get a "Burger, fries, and a drink, and change back from a dollar!" She remembers the burgers alone only cost 29 cents. Now, keep in mind that although there were daily specials, there was no such thing as a “meal deal.”

Nowadays a burger, small fries, and a small drink from a fast-food chain (all purchased separately like my mom had to do,) will cost you $5.57. A burger alone is $2.89 cents and the fries will run you about $1.29. I have to agree that sure seems more expensive!

So using this information, how much was the whole meal in the 1950’s?

How much was just a drink in the 1950’s?

How much were just the fries in the 1950’s?

Make sure to explain how you found your costs in the 1950’s. Your explanation should be so clear anyone could solve this kind of problem.

What math concept have you learned in class that helps you solve this problem?

Make sure to organize your data in a manner that is easy for people to compare the costs.

EXTRA CREDIT:
If the increased cost of these items were exactly the same as the 60 year period from above, how much will those same food items cost you in 2070?

The Same Old...

2010-02-18T22:39:00.001-07:00

In the figure above, the two triangles are similar. You will need to find the value of x. Make sure to provide proof that your solution is correct. This should be written out and should be supported with an illustration(s) so we fully understand how you found your solution. Once you have found your solution you will want to open paint and create the visual to support your explaination.

Copy and paste your visual into the word document you used to write up your solution. When you have completed the task and you are ready to submit your work you will need to open your own email and send your work to mathclasshonors@yahoo.com. You can not just click on this link. You will need to copy and paste this address in the "To" in your email. You will attach your work in your email. DO NOT cut and paste your work in the body of the email.

Horton's Clover Hunt

2010-02-11T18:27:00.013-07:00

Horton's Clover Hunt

Who doesn't love the story Horton Hears a Who! by Dr. Seuss. For those of you who aren't familiar with this particular tale, Horton the elephant takes on the task of protecting tiny creatures living on a dust speck that he has placed on a clover.

At one point in the story, a bird steals the clover from Horton and drops it over a very large clover field at 6:56 a.m. Ever the faithful protector and true to his promise to save them, "Because, after all, a person's a person, no matter how small," Horton begins the enormous task of searching for the lost clover.

But clover, by clover, by clover he found
That the one that he sought for was just not around.
And by noon poor old Horton, more dead than alive,
Had picked, searched, and piled up, nine thousand and five.

1. At this rate, estimate how many clovers Horton picked each minute.
2. Approximately how many seconds did Horton spend on each clover?

For each of the above answers, round to the nearest whole unit.

The story continues

Then, on through the afternoon, hour after hour...
Till he found them at last! On the three millionth flower!

You need only choose one of these questions to answer:

A. If Horton continued at the rate you calculated above without pausing, how long would it take him to reach the three millionth flower? Be sure to answer this question in a way that makes sense (in other words, don't give an answer like 72 hours when 3 days would give us a better sense of how long this is).

or

B. In the story it seems that Horton finds the clover later the same day. If he continued picking from noon until he found the clover at six o'clock that same evening, approximately how fast would he have to work?

This weeks POW is fun,
Comprehensive answers will be done,
Incomplete answers are not fine,
Nor is just having the "answer" in mind,
Working in partners will do
But don't post until your answer is true. :-)

Dr. Suesseckman

Solution: Most of you were right on the money for the rate per minute and also seconds per clover, however you were kind of all over the place for the last two questions. ;-) Please think these through carefully before posting you answers. Many of you posted the same answer, exactly! You are given the privilege of working together however when it comes to posting it needs to be your own work, thoughts and words. Duplicate posts will no longer accepted. I will accept the first post and credit it's author and then reject any posts using the same verbiage and will not credit the author with a score. Further, the posts writing has moved away from the posting requirements. Please review the requirements as future posts that do not meet the requirements will not be posted nor will credit be assigned for the problem.

1. At this rate, estimate how many clovers Horton picked each minute.

a. 30 clovers per minute

2. Approximately how many seconds did Horton spend on each clover?

a. 2 seconds per clover.

You need only choose one of these questions to answer:
a. If Horton continued at the rate you calculated above without pausing, how long would it take him to reach the three millionth flower? Be sure to answer this question in a way that makes sense (in other words, don't give an answer like 72 hours when 3 days would give us a better sense of how long this is).
a. It would take Horton about 10 weeks of non-stop picking to get 3 million clovers.

b. In the story it seems that Horton finds the clover later the same day. If he continued picking from noon until he found the clover at six o'clock that same evening, approximately how fast would he have to work?
a. 8,308 clovers per minute to finish by 6:00 pm.

Best Brownies

2010-02-04T22:15:00.016-07:00

The bakery chef at Central Supermarket is collecting the ingredients to bake some brownies. His cookbook contains this ingredient list:

INGREDIENTS FOR BROWNIES

1/2 cup butter

1.5 ounces unsweetened chocolate

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup chopped nuts

Use a 6-inch by 9-inch baking pan.

However, the chef needs to use a commercial-size baking pan, 18 inches by 2 feet.

Figure out how much of each ingredient would be needed to bake brownies in this pan. Explain how you found your answer and how you know it is correct.

(The brownies should still have the same thickness as in the original recipe.)

1.   The answers for this post were kind of all over the place. A couple of things you should have been thinking about as you solved this problem:

2.   Did you include the units? Were you suppose to use cups, teaspoons? This would have a huge effect on the new batch of brownies.

3.   Did you fractions make sense? Could a larger recipe call for less of an ingredient?

4.   How many dimensions are you enlarging? This problem call for you to use the area of the pan, (we didn't even have to think about the volume - whew!) which is two dimensions. Because you were using two dimensions we need to take that scale factor for both sides and multiply them together or as we learned in the scaling project to square our scale factor.

Make sure to slow down and think about the POW if it seems so obvious you may want to re-read the problem to be sure you have all the information you need to solve the problem.
Ms. L.

The correct answer:

The new recipe

4 cups butter
12 ounces unsweetened chocolate
8 cups sugar
16 eggs
8 teaspoons vanilla
6 cups all-purpose flour
8/3 cups chopped nuts

Royal Snacks

2010-01-07T23:14:00.012-07:00

One night the King couldn't sleep, so he went down into the Royal kitchen, where he found a bowl full of mangoes. Being hungry, he took 1/6 of the mangoes.

Later that same night, the Queen was hungry and couldn't sleep. She, too, found the mangoes and took 1/5 of what the King had left.

Still later, the first Prince awoke, went to the kitchen, and ate 1/4 of the remaining mangoes.

Even later, his brother, the second Prince, ate 1/3 of what was then left.

Finally, the third Prince ate 1/2 of what was left, leaving only three mangoes for the servants.

How many mangoes were originally in the bowl?

Nicely done to you all!!!!! A great way to work with these types of problems is to work backwards. Some of you started at 18 and then explained why this number worked. This is a great example of "proof." Some of you started and 3, this was a great way to show your method. You used tables and proportion to solve this kuddos! I loved the student that made it the connection that the ate 1/6th of the mangos, and the portion of each 6th was three (as stated in the left overs.) Nice Job. Many of you got lucky this week as you simply multiplied - however there was a big assumption for those of you that used this method that each person ate 3. There was no explaination of how you knew this, I can only make the assumption that you simple used numbers given without justifying why 3 worked. Here is another way to solve the problem - visualize the problem.

Please don't forget to follow the criteria for posting on the main page. Things to think about:
Are you using complete explainations?
Are there steps left out?
Are you using complete sentences?
Are you providing proof or your process?

Thanksgiving

2009-11-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

A large Thanksgiving banquet served between 500 and 600 people. The dinner rolls came in baker's dozens (packages of 13). After everyone had been served a roll there were a number of empty packages plus one open package with 10 rolls left. The pies for dessert had each been cut into ninths, and after everyone had been served a slice there were a number of empty pie tins plus one pie tin with 4 slices left. The tables in the banquet hall each had room for 15 guests. All but one of the tables were full. How many people were seated at that last table?

Remember to explain how you got your answer. You should have all the steps in your explaination. Someone who does not understand math should be able to look at your answer and how you solved the problem and understand how to work through the problem.

Have fun and good luck,
Ms. L.

Building Bouquets

2009-10-02T12:31:00.000-07:00

Jana owns and operates an independent flower shop. To help sell more flowers (and cut down on waste), she offers a daily special of bouquets or corsages created from "leftovers" from larger orders.

With today's batch of leftovers, Jana decides to try 4 flowers in each bouquet, but she has three extra flowers left. To make pricing easier, she wants the specials to be the same size, so she tries making the bouquets with 7 flowers each... but then there are two flowers left. If she makes bundles of 8 flowers, she has three flowers left.

What is the smallest possible number of flowers that Jana has to work with?

With the number of flowers determined above, how many bouquets or corsages and of what size can Jana make?

Do you think that Jana would ever have enough leftovers that it wouldn't matter if she chose to make bouquets of 7, 8, or 9 flowers? (Don't forget - Jana doesn't want to waste a single flower.)

Friday the 25th

2009-09-25T12:36:00.001-07:00

Today you will learn how to work on the wiki.

You will need to go to our link - (Listed on the side of the page and below.)

Class Wiki

Sign up and create an account, then come and see me. I will make you a writer. You may then go looking for math games. You will add any games you find to the game page on the wiki. You will create a title for the page, write a description of the game and paste it under the correct grade level and math strand. Just like in the blog it is very wise to create everything in Word and then cut and past it into the wiki. (Make sure you have clicked the "EDIT PAGE" button to do your pasting.

See me for any help,
Ms. L.

Really Thirsty

2009-09-03T19:03:00.004-07:00

If we were to fill a glass with water at a constant rate (for example, 1 cubic inch per minute), we could graph the height of the water in the glass as time goes by.

Suppose we fill the three glasses below in such a manner. Match up each glass with the graph that best describes the height of the water in the glass over time. Justify your answer using key features of the glass and the graph.

Describe the glass (or create one in paint,) that would correspond to the leftover graph. (Be sure to save your picture as a JPEG and e-mail to Ms. Leckman at mathclasshonors@yahoo.com)

Here is some student work:

Hoppy Days

2009-08-28T12:50:00.003-07:00

Three green frogs and three brown frogs sit on their own lily pads. There is one spare pad between the two sets of frogs. No pad can support more than one frog at a time.

The green frogs are going to change places with the brown frogs, but must observe the following rules.

• A frog can hop to an adjacent pad.

• A frog can jump over another frog to an unused pad.

• A frog cannot move backward. For example, once a frog moves to the right, it can only continue to move to the right.

1. What is the minimum number of moves needed to have the green frogs switch places with the brown frogs? Describe the movement of the frogs.

http://www.mofunzone.com/online_games/frog_leap.shtml#

SOLUTION:

The minimum hops is 15. I have included a visual for you. You could have drawn the problem out or created a table to help you solve the problem.

Grandma's Birthday

2009-08-20T23:54:00.004-07:00

Alice and Jessica are writing invitations for a surprise birthday party for their grandmother. Alice starts at 8:00 a.m. and writes 10 invitations per hour. Jessica starts at 10:00 a.m. and writes 15 invitations per hour.

If the girls stop when they have written the same number of invitations, what time will it be?
Together, how many invitations will they have written?
Each invitation is for two people. Two-thirds of the people who receive invitations attend the party. Remembering that Alice and Jessica do not get invitations but are the hostesses, and Grandmother does not receive an invitation because she is the guest of honor, how many people are at the party?

Very Nicely done for a first POW!!! Here is the solution. It will clearify the answer for some of you and fine tune some of your thinking. Again, nice job!!!

You could have made a table with the time and the number of invitations each girl made per hour. By 10:00, Alice will have done 20 invitations. At 11:00, 30 and 15 invitations will be produced by Alice and Jessica respectively. At 12:00, Alice would have completed 40 and Jessica would have done 30. At 1:00, 50 and 45 will be done. At 2:00, they will have both done 60 invitations for a total of 120 invitations. 2/3rds of the people invited would be 160 people in attendance. But don’t forget you need include Alice, Jessica and their Grandmother so there would be a total of 163 people at the party.

Ms. L.