7th-8th Grade Ms. Fritzie
Seventh and Eighth Grade students are to make sense out of their world, to see the mathematics all around them, to be able to talk about the math in informal terms translating those informal terms and ideas to formal mathematics and generalizations. It is the teacher’s job to see that there are many experiences for students to grow in these critical areas.
7th-8th Grade Sample Question
Students should work in partners to create their posters. Once the posters are completed, partners present their strategies and conclusions to the class. The problem shown is #1 in the book. Problems become progressively more difficult through to the end, problem 30.
Materials:
- Newsprint or other large paper, pencil, calculators as needed.
The Problem:
Ms Fritzie purchased a curio shelf at a flea market. The shelf was in the shape of an equilateral triangle that had been subdivided into 4 congruent equilateral triangles. Knowing that a side of one of the smaller equilateral triangles measured 6 inches, Ms Fritzie surmised that the perimeter of the entire curio shelf was 4 feet.
Help students with any vocabulary that is new to them. One of the benefits of using Ms Fritzie is that you do have a great deal of vocabulary that can be introduced as needed to solve the problem. Student partners must then decide whether Ms. Fritzie’s answer is reasonable or unreasonable. They should draw Ms. Fritzie’s face and put a thought bubble that describes what Ms. Fritzie is thinking.
They then create a poster using pictures, numbers and words which will prove whether Ms. Fritzie is reasonable or unreasonable. Once posters are complete, student pairs defend their solution strategies and their conclusion. The class listens to each presentation. Ultimately you want the class to be able to compare the presented solution strategy to their own strategies.
7th Grade Sample Poster
The team explained that since 1 side of a smaller triangle was 6 inches, they knew that there were 6 of those sides and that once they multiplied the 6 sides times the 6 inches, they had 36 inches. They had to convert the inches to feet. There are 12 inches in a foot so they divided the 36 inches by 12 inches to get 3 feet. They also said that they thought about just saying that 36 inches is equal to 1 yard and 1 yard is equal to 3 feet, but they wanted to use the fractions for division. (Cool kids!)
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