Home and Family Activities

Overview: Tasks Related to Home and Family Activities

This set of tasks draws on activities relevant to students’ homes and families. Students’ experiences with family activities (such as birthday celebrations) and issues in the community (such as conserving water) could be leveraged for learning with these tasks. The tasks engage students in mathematical modeling (Mathematical Practice 4) through activities including:

  • Deciding what a fair share siblings who are splitting the costs of a birthday gift.
  • Calculating and estimating how much water is used in daily activities such as bathing, showering, and brushing teeth.
  • Comparing options (e.g., bathing vs. showering) and using data to persuade.
  • Evaluating claims (e.g., regarding water usage in brushing teeth) with data, calculations, and estimations.
  • Communicating plans, model, and creating a persuasive data-based argument with tables, pictures, numbers, and/or words.

Specific mathematical content and other mathematical practices connected to tasks are described within the lesson overview of each task.

Home and Family Activities Tasks

Abuelo’s Birthday Task Overview

The Abuelo’s Birthday Task asks students to help grandchildren fairly share the cost of their abuelo’s birthday present. Students must decide what a is fair share for siblings who are different ages and make different amounts of money. Content standards in this task focus on whole number operations and writing and interpreting numerical expressions.

Student Task Documents

We are including both PDF and MSWord versions of the Student Task document. The MSWord version will allow you to easily edit the task if you wish to do so. The PDF version will maintain the original format. There are two versions of this task. Version A uses friendly numbers. Version B also includes an income range that students must address as they make their plan.

Lesson Slides

The Lesson Slides ask students to first think about what it means fairly share the cost of something. The two versions of the tasks are color coded to make it easier for the teacher to select the slides that are the best fit for their students.

Abuelo’s Birthday Resource Files

Student Work

This file provides annotated student work for grade levels 3-5 and teacher feedback.

Overview

The Shower vs Bath Task focuses on water conservation. Students investigate which bathing option saves the most water and how much water can their family save by choosing that option. Concepts and skills developed through this task include multiplication and time and volume measurement.

Student Task Documents

We are including both PDF and MSWord versions of the Student Task document. The MSWord version will allow you to easily edit the task if you wish to do so. The PDF version will maintain the original format.

Lesson Slides

The Lesson Slides include a launch to promote discussion about the amount of water used when taking a shower versus taking a bath. This includes three YouTube video links that compare the amount of water used during showers vs baths.

Shower vs. Bath Resource Files

Student Work

Four Grade 4 Student Work samples for the Shower vs Bath Task are included in this file. Students used multiplication and division of whole and rational numbers and capacity and time measurement to determine whether a shower or bath uses the least amount of water.

Overview

There are many ways families can support their community’s effort to conserve clean water. In this task children will determine how much water they can save by turning off the water while they brush their teeth. Students will develop understanding of liquid volumes and data collection to as they explore ways to conserve water.

Student Task

We are including both PDF and MSWord versions of the Student Task document. The MSWord version will allow you to easily edit the task if you wish to do so. The PDF version will maintain the original format.

Lesson Slides

The Lesson Slides include the different routines outlined in the Lesson Overview. Theses routines are color-coded to help identify the transition from one routine to the other. The slides also include a link to a YouTube Video which can be viewed by clicking on the link. You must have internet access to stream the video and your school must allow access to YouTube.

Brushing Teeth and Water Waste Resource Files

Student Work

This file provides three examples of student solution paths for the Conserving Water while Brushing Teeth task. Students used multiplication and division of whole and rational numbers and worked with time and volume measurements and conversions. The teacher asked the students to explain their work and label each number as part of their explanation, thus promoting student understanding.

Student Work Documents

Nana’s Birthday Task Notes

In this task, students must determine how four grandchildren should combine their money to purchase a gift (art supplies) for their Nana/grandma. The grandchildren in the story are different ages and have different amounts of money they earn or already have. The students must come up with a recommendation about how to share the cost of the present. The plan must be fair and usable in other similar situations. Students are asked to report out plan with a group poster and whole class discussion. Content standards include operations with whole numbers and money, multistep problem solving and rounding with money.

Student Task Documents

We are including both PDF and MSWord versions of the Student Task document. The MSWord version will allow you to easily edit the task if you wish to do so. The PDF version will maintain the original format. There are two versions of this task.

Nana’s Birthday Resource Files