Math

Students will build a “boat” out of foil. Then, teachers will help them test the boat in a container of water where students can place weights onto the boat. Teachers will then weigh the weights with a food scale and students can compare their boats’ weight capacities. 

Students will be tasked with creating a pumpkin catapult to launch a candy pumpkin (or other small, light object). Students will launch their catapults and grades 2-5 will measure and record their launch data, while grades K-1 will compare/compete with other groups.

Students will learn about bridge design and be tasked with building a bridge that can span a piece of paper and will be placed on top of keva planks. Bridges will be tested with weight (coins or water bottle). Grades 4-5 will measure angles of shapes on their bridges.

After reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas, students will work together to build a sleigh for the Grinch so he can take the presents and decorations from the Whos. Older students (Grades 3-5) will create a blueprint for their sleighs.

Students will be introduced to the farmers' market and be asked to create a cart to transport food. Materials will cost “money”, and K-2 will have a budget. K-1 will just have number constraints, and grade 2 will have monetary amounts. Grades 3-5 will have to calculate profit based on the cost of their cart and earnings from carrying food. Food will be represented by Unifix cubes. Students (K-2) will pull their cart in a designated area to test.

Students will learn about Gail Halvorsen and then design their own candy parachutes. Grades 2-5 will use a budget for materials. They will all test their parachutes from different heights, with older grades (2-5) recording heights.

Students work in teams to follow criteria and constraints to design their own container that holds pompoms (popcorn). When this is completed they need to test and record how many pom-poms their container will hold.

Students work in teams to build towers.  Students add or remove blocks based on the teacher’s directions to change the quantity of the blocks used and design of the towers built.

Students will learn about the Fibonacci Sequence. They will be tasked with designing a flower that can stand on its own, incorporating a number from the sequence (ex. number of petals or leaves).

Students will use the design process to create a new pair of shoes. The shoes will be in the shape of a rectangle to allow for students to calculate area Based on grade (3-5) students will perform different mathematical explorations of the dimensions of their shoes.

5: find area using multiplication, compare decimals

4: find area using multiplication, compare fractions

3: find area by counting unit squares