Sharing Snacks at School Tasks

Overview: Tasks Related to Sharing Snacks at School

This set of tasks draws on activities relevant to students’ ideas about of sharing food items among many people. Students’ experiences with sharing food at school, with friends and at home could be leveraged for learning with these tasks. The tasks engage students in mathematical modeling (Mathematical Practice 4) through activities including:

  • Estimating a reasonable unit amount needed (e.g., serving size per person), the number of people sharing the food, and the amount in a purchased package.
  • Comparing options for purchasing a large amount of food; especially considering package size and unit rates.
  • Evaluating the fairness of the plan considering ideas of equal and equitable shares.
  • 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.


Sharing Snacks at School Tasks

Overview

In this task, students will determine how many pizzas they should order if their class has a pizza party. To answer this question, students may discuss ideas related to fractions, comparison of fractions, data collection and estimation.

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 the different routines outlined in the Lesson Overview. The last slide is an extension of the task and is colored-coded in blue to help identify it as such.

Pizza Party Resource Files

Pizza Party Student Work

Two grade 3 and two grade five solution paths are provided for the Pizza Party Task.

Popcorn Movie Night Notes:

In this task students will plan for enough popcorn to serve their class and/or their school including families during family movie night. The mathematics used focuses on estimation, and multiplication and division of whole numbers. Students must also communicate mathematically by providing a plan that can be used in other sharing situations.

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 the task, Class Movie Night and School Movie Night.

Lesson Slides

The Lesson Slides include the different routines outlined in the Lesson Overview. The Class Movie Night is color coded in blue.

Popcorn Sharing Resource Files

Student Work

This file includes summaries of the “Warm-Up” discussions for grades 3 and 5 and sample solution paths for grades 3, 4 and 5. You will also see how the problem was changed to accommodate the different grade levels.

Overview

The Sharing Oranges Task asks students to determine how many bags or boxes of mandarin oranges they need to buy to provide oranges for their morning snack. Standards used in the task primarily focus on multidigit whole number addition, subtraction, multiplication and division with remainders. Students will be asked to estimate the number of oranges per container and then determine many containers to buy. Finally, they will calculate the cost of their solution. An extension to the task asks students to look for alternative solutions to reduce the cost.

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 how mandarin oranges or clementines are harvested and packaged, questions related to the number of oranges found in 2 lb., 3 lb., and 5lb. containers, and the task slides. There is a link to a YouTube video showing how the oranges are grown and harvested slide 2.

Orange Sharing Resource Files

Overview

The Sharing Snacks: Animal Crackers Task asks students to determine a fair way to share a large container of animal crackers with their class. Standards used in the task primarily focus on multidigit whole number addition, subtraction, multiplication and division with remainders. Students may round to whole numbers or use fractions to provide a more exact answer.

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 how to determine the number of animal crackers in the large container and how to share those crackers among the students in the class.

Animal Cracker Sharing Resource Files

Overview

The Sharing Strawberries Task asks students to determine a fair way to share four containers of strawberries with their class. Standards used in the task primarily focus on multidigit whole number addition, subtraction, multiplication and division with remainders. Students may use simple fractions in their solutions. Methods used to estimate the number of strawberries per container may include concepts related to area and volume.

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 how strawberries are harvested and packaged and the task slides. A link to a related harvesting of strawberries YouTube video is provided on slide 2. Teachers are encouraged to use videos of local school or community gardens as a substitute for this slide if they are available.

Strawberry Sharing Resource Files

Overview

The Pretzel Sharing Task asks students to determine a fair way to share a large container of pretzels for a week’s worth of snack time. Standards used in the task primarily focus on multidigit whole number addition, subtraction, multiplication and division with remainders. Students may round to whole numbers or use fractions to provide a more exact answer. Student are asked to estimate the number of pretzels in the container and may use concepts related to area or volume to do so.

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 how to determine the number of pretzels in the large container and how to share them among the students in the class.

Pretzel Sharing Resource Files

Student Work

We have posted four examples of student work for the Pretzel Sharing Task in the Student Work folder. Students used a variety of strategies to estimate the number of pretzels in the container and the number of pretzels that each child/group will be able to have each day. Whole number addition, multiplication, and division with remainders were used in the majority of responses to the task questions.

Student Work File