Category Archives: sixth grade

Teach Ratio with Math Snacks

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📖 Standard

CCSS.Math.Content.6.RP.A.1 Understand ratio concepts and use ratio reasoning to solve problems.

📲 Technology Required

Computer with projector, for in-class use. Computer or tablet with Internet access for home use.

⏰ Time

90 minutes

📃 Summary

Students watch a video from Math Snacks in which Isabella uses the ratio of words she speaks to her date to determine if it was a good or bad day. The video has a companion teacher guide with questions to stimulate students’ thinking about ratios and test their understanding. Students play a game where they brew potions with given ratios to defeat an opponent. Students then complete a learner’s guide assessing and reinforcing their knowledge of ratios.

📚 Lesson

Read the Bad Date Teacher Guide

The Teacher Guide, available from Math Snacks, will give you an overview of the lesson. This guide includes several discussion questions for use with students.

Watch the Bad Date Video

This three- and-a-half-minute humorous video uses the ratio of words in a conversation to show a couple of bad dates and one good one.

Have a class discussion

Use the discussion questions in the Teacher Guide from Math Snacks to check students’ understanding. Note that this will require you to restart and show the video again, stopping at specific points.

If you have not yet introduced equivalent ratios to your class, you may want to skip some of these questions and come back later.

Play the Game Ratio Rumble

The Ratio Rumble game can be played online here at the Math Snacks website or downloaded free for iPads. The first game level begins with 1:1 ratios and gets more complex in higher levels.

Students complete the learner guide

It’s called a learner guide, not a worksheet, so that makes it cool! Seriously, the Bad Date Learner Guide, available here from Math Snacks, has two pages of review and assessment items that test understanding. Students are asked to draw a picture of a ratio, complete “what-if” scenarios and give some examples of other situations in which 1:1 ratios would or would not be desirable.

Related lesson

For another introduction of ratio, see the lesson Introduction to Ratio and Proportion.

Raising Sheep and Rational Numbers

📖 Standards

Dine’ Culture Standards (3.PO2) I will develop an understanding of Dine’ way of life through Iina’. I will implement and recognize the Dine’ lifestyle. I will present the stories related to Land and Water Beings.

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.7.EE.B.3 Solve multi-step real-life and mathematical problems posed with positive and negative rational numbers in any form (whole numbers, fractions, and decimals)

⏰ Time

45 minutes

📲 Technology Required

Device with web-browser – Chromebook, laptop or desktop computer, phone or tablet

📃 Summary

Why would a Navajo sheep farmer need rational numbers? Our sheep farmer wants to build a new sheep corral. He would need to know positive and negative numbers, fractions, and decimals. This middle school lesson on rational numbers is integrated with some Navajo sheep history and is for grades 7 to 8. The examples are detailed and include word problems of rational numbers as applied to finding sheep farming profits. Operation rules are covered along with application of ratio and perimeter skills.

📚 Lesson

1. Bell ringer: Navajo Sheepherding Life

Have students watch this short spotlight video of Navajo sheepherding life in Arizona.

2. Write answers to prompts

Write a short response to it to keep in their notes for discussion during the history parts of the lesson.

What do you notice about the northern Arizona terrain?
What do traditional Navajos think of land ownership?
How does the grandmother, Helen, care for her animals?

3. Math Lesson on Rational Numbers

This presentation, Raising sheep and rational numbers, introduces the concept of rational numbers as anything that can be explained as a ratio. Negative numbers are illustrated both as loans a sheep farmer would take out and depth of holes in the ground that the farmer needs to consider in selecting the size of posts. Students are given rules of integer addition and subtraction to use as an aid in solving problems.

4. Play Game

Play Making Camp Navajo – Sheep Herding and Rational numbers.

Differentiated Instruction

For students who may need a review of the basics, this video on What are Rational provides a good and entertaining refresher.

Related Lessons

Adding and subtracting decimals — Students watch two videos explaining decimal and fraction equivalence. They are then presented with a brief reminder of natural, integer and rational numbers. A slide presentation discusses adding and subtracting decimals. The lesson ends with teacher and student-generated practice problems.

Assessment

There are five problems within the presentation to be worked as a class. Teachers can present the question and have students write the answers and then present the answers. Alternatively, for students working at home, each slide with questions is followed by worked answers.

Teachers can also see which standards students have attempted and how many problems they have answered correctly in the Making Camp teacher reports.

Google Slides and Math

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📖Standards

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.SP.B.5.C Giving quantitative measures of center (median and/or mean) and variability (interquartile range and/or mean absolute deviation), as well as describing any overall pattern and any striking deviations from the overall pattern with reference to the context in which the data were gathered.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.7 Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.

⏰ Time

120 – 180 minutes (You may wish to use 2-3 class periods)

📲 Technology Required

The games used here require a Chromebook, Windows or Mac computers or iPads.

📃 Summary

Students play three games that teach fractions and statistics. Students learn enhanced features of Google slides. They then create a Google slides presentation stating which is their favorite game and why.

📚 Lesson

0. Optional: Google Slides Basics

If students are not familiar with Google Slides, begin with the Google Slides Basics lessons. If students know how to create slides document, select a theme, add text, images, transitions and animations, you can skip this step.

1. Introduce the assignment

Explain to students that they will be playing three different educational games and making a recommendation for future classes. If there is only time to play one of these games, which should the teacher choose. A copy of the assignment is here with both Chromebook and iPad games included. Save to your Google classroom or other system and delete whichever device is not available to your students. If your students have access to both devices, no editing is required. Since their presentation will be made with Google Slides and they want it to be as convincing as possible, they should include images and video to support their points.

2. Play AzTech: The Story Begins

This game teaches fractions and basic statistics, integrated with social studies terms and Latin American history.

Allow students 10 -15 minutes to play the game.

3. Learn about Google Slides Advanced Features

This presentation has links to six videos beyond Google slides basics.

Click on the links on the left side of the screen to learn about:

Modifying the theme
Inserting video
Adding effects to text and images

Allow 10-15 minutes to watch videos and start on their presentations.

4. Play Forgotten Trail or Fish Lake Adventure

Students play Fish Lake Adventure (iPad) a game that teaches fractions or Forgotten Trail (Chromebook), a game that teaches fractions and statistics.

Allow 10-15 minutes to watch videos and continue their presentations.

5. More Google Slides Advanced Features

Continue with more Google slides basics. Watch three videos on the right side of the screen on :

Customizing with Word Art
Publishing to the web
Presentation notes

Allow 10-15 minutes to watch videos and continue their presentations.

6. Play AzTech: Meet the Maya

Allow students the option of playing AzTech: Meet the Maya or continuing one of the two previous games. Meet the Maya continues the game series that teaches fractions and basic statistics, integrated with social studies terms and Latin American history.

Allow 10-15 minutes to play and continue their presentations.

7. Finish !

It’s decision time. Students will select one game to finish for their presentation. Students who finish ahead of the class may play the other games.

Allow 30 minutes to finish the game they have chosen and continue their presentations.

8. Optional (extra credit) Present or publish

Depending on your class and your own objectives, you may want to end this lesson with students either publishing their presentations to the web or presenting in class and trying to convince their classmates that the game they have chosen is the one students should be using to learn next year.

Allow 30 minutes to finish the game they have chosen and continue their presentations.

Google Slides Basic Skills

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⏰ Lesson Time

15-20 minutes EACH for two lessons

📲 Technology Required

Device with web-browser – Chromebook, laptop or desktop computer, iPhone or iPad

📃 Summary

There are 6 short videos on Google Slides topics like adding images and choosing a theme. We recommend breaking the first four videos into two separate lessons that students complete during class.

📚 Lesson

These lessons from Google for Education provide a good overview to Google Slides. These are part of the Applied Digital Skills program for which you can register your class and/or yourself or you can just select individual lessons. In our experience, students do better when the lessons are split over 3 or more days.

Day 1: Watch videos 1, 2 and 3

Learn Google Slides while creating a presentation about you. This lesson can be used as is or modified for other topics. The default assignment is for students to create an “All About Me” presentation. The first three videos explain creating a presentation, choosing a theme, inserting a title, adding text and images. You can copy the link and paste it into your Google classroom or other site used for assignments or have students watch these together as a group in class.

For younger students, these three videos may be adequate for your class requirements.

Day 2: Create a Presentation (Bells and Whistles optional)

Watch this five-minute video on Animation and Transition in Google Slides.

Create Your Own Presentation

After watching this 5-minute video, students are ready to create their own presentation. Students can create an “About Me” presentation as suggested in the Google slides or teachers can assign their own preferred topic.

Assessment

Rubric for assessment includes:

Student created Google slides presentation
Presentation includes the following elements: headers, text and images
Presentation uses at least one animation and one slide transition

For younger students, you may wish to eliminate the last requirement.

Related lesson:

Google Apps Basics for Hamsters — As the name implies, a super-basic introduction to Google Drive and Google Docs.

Google Apps Basics for Hamsters

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While I have heard many teachers say,

“My students know technology better than I do.”
– Teacher who is often incorrect.

I have often found this not to be the case when it comes to Google apps. I’ve often found that students sometimes don’t want to admit that they don’t know Google apps, assuming that everyone else does.

No hamsters were available so I used my guinea pig

This is the first in a series of lessons for either teachers or students who may not be extremely familiar with Google apps.

For many years, I taught statistics in graduate programs in education, psychology, business and engineering. On a conference planning committee, we had a request that read,

“I would like a session on statistics, but not statistics for dummies. I want a session so easy that a hamster could understand it.”

So, that was the origin of my session, “Statistics for Hamsters.”

Now, maybe you are a Google apps guru and you don’t need any of this. Yay for you. Seriously, yay! Let’s hang out. Still, you may find these resources helpful to share with your students. Just copy the link into your Google classroom, which, of course, you know how to do.

If that is not you, keep reading, and we can still hang out. Especially if you bring coffee.

⏰ Lesson Time

25 minutes

📲 Technology Required

Device with web-browser – Chromebook, laptop or desktop computer, iPhone or iPad

📚 Lessons

Google Drive and Google Doc: Super-Basics

All the Google apps lessons follow a similar format of a series of 15-30 second videos on simple tasks like opening the app, creating a new file and sharing. The lessons are 6-7 minutes but by the time your students get their computers open, log on and start the lesson we estimate around ten minutes of class time.

We have had more success with having students do these activities in class prior to an assignment that will use the app.

This is our favorite basic–basic lesson on Google Drive. From Google for Education, takes six minutes and ends with a quiz where you can test your knowledge.

Introduction to Google docs – The total lesson should take about 7 minutes.

Use what you learned

Follow up this lesson with a simple assignment in Google docs. This provides three prompts students can choose from to answer a question. They will practice creating a doc, copying and pasting from a doc (or, alternatively, saving to their drive), editing a doc and sharing it.

Note to the teacher: You should save the assignment in your Google classroom or other system and be sure to edit it to include your email before assigning to students.

Primary and Secondary Sources with Buffalo Hunting

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📖Standards

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.1
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.

⏰ Lesson Time

40-60 minutes

📲Technology

If you would like to incorporate the game, students will need access to computers with Spirit Lake installed on them.

In class: If you are teaching in person, you will need a laptop and projector for your slideshow presentation. If you want to include Spirit Lake gameplay, your students will need access to Mac or Windows computers that have Spirit Lake installed, along with their assigned usernames and passwords. Alternatively, Making Camp Dakota can be played on any device.

Remote: Students need internet connections to see your presentation, watch the videos, and view and enter answers on their worksheets.

📃 Summary

Discover why primary sources are important with a story about Dakota buffalo hunting. Have your students watch the following two videos back to back within the downloadable slideshow. These two videos together are great resources for a lesson on the value of primary sources. Included are questions for discussion and critical thinking. Students can do a primary sources scavenger hunt at the Library of Congress (LOC) website. Included in the slides are two curated museum videos about American bison.

Example usable to teach with primary sources: Black and white video of galloping buffalo

📚 Lesson

Present the lesson Buffalo Hunting – Primary and Secondary Sources. The slideshow comes with several examples of primary and secondary sources from the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian museum, and YouTube.

Videos with Primary and Secondary Sources

Two videos about the Dakota buffalo hunters are presented within the presentation for your students to compare and contrast. The first video contains primary sources, and the second is an interpretation of the narration using animation as a secondary source.

If you want to go directly to the two videos included in the Google slides presentation, these are linked below.

Video with Primary Sources

Video with Secondary Sources

Questions included within the Google Slides presentation

These can be discussed together in class or assigned to students to answer individually.

Reflect: Which video did you like better? What did you like about it?
Compare and Contrast: Was there any information you could get from the first video that you did not see in the second?
Explain: Do you think both videos are equally accurate?
Analyze: The first video used photos and paintings. The second video used animation to help tell the story. Both were made about the buffalo hunt. Which source did you think was more trustworthy? Why?
Synthesize: Imagine if you could add some more facts to the video using primary and secondary sources. List one primary source you would add. List one secondary source.

Differentiated Instruction

Note: For differentiated instruction, you can have students select one or two of the questions to answer. In more advanced classes, you may wish to discuss how the oil painters could be biased in their representation of their subjects, and how even photos could be biased in the subjects photographers chose to capture.

Virtual Scavenger Hunt

Review the copy and paste functions with your students as learning a key introductory component of online research using the LOC. Enclosed are instructions for students to help walk your students through.
Have students research primary sources at the LOC website. Click the following link for downloadable graphic organizers to distribute to your class. One answer model has been filled out. Students will copy and paste URLs for six primary sources from the LOC site and label three of them.

Game

Spirit Lake is an adventure game with multiplication, division, and geometry practice that plays on Mac or Windows computers. This is tied in with Dakota culture and history. You can have your students play for 20-30 minutes, hunt rabid wolves, and hunt buffalo. Look out for primary and secondary sources!

Don’t have a Mac or Windows computer? Making Camp Dakota can be played on the web and also includes content with buffalo hunting, as well as examples of primary and secondary sources.

Assessment

To check their data, you need your Spirit Lake teacher data reports username and password and your students’ usernames and passwords roster added to your account for Spirit Lake.

Related Lesson

Primary and secondary sources

Primary and Secondary Sources

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📖Standards

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.1
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.

⏰ Time Required

40 minutes

📲Technology Required

Students must have access to laptops, desktop computers, or tablets with an internet connection. Students also need a camera for taking pictures of their primary and secondary sources to email to the teachers.

📃 Summary

This history lesson for Grades 5-6 introduces primary and secondary sources as it relates to history.

This 40-minute lesson begins with a 7-10 minute presentation on sources with some formative assessment using manipulatives. Students can learn about secondary sources through the telephone game presentation. Students then delve into two different types of sources: primary and secondary sources. Students can do a KidCitizen online module about Primary Sources. The lesson provides a summative assessment activity where students generate two primary sources and one secondary source about an event in their lives.

📚 Lesson

Introduce the Lesson
The lesson slideshow, Primary and Secondary Sources, begins with the telephone game. Students will gain more understanding of why sources are important to keep track of.

Critical Thinking

Students think, “Why are sources important for studying history?” Question words are included in the slides: “Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How?”

KidCitizen Module

The link for the Primary Sources interactive module is included in the slideshow. Students undergo a self-paced but short online module to understand primary sources. Also, you can click here to explore the module and copy the URL.

Assessment

This activity, which does incorporate writing, is included in the slideshow, but is also written below. Just copy and paste the text into your Google classroom or other LMS.

You are living history! Tell the class about an event that happened in your life using primary and secondary sources. You may change the number of sources they submit to you.

THINK: What resources do you need?
SELECT two primary sources in your home about yourself and one secondary source. Label your sources as Primary Source and Secondary Source.
Take a picture of your two primary sources and of your secondary source. Email it to your teacher.
Write a paragraph about your historical life event in your own words using your sources as proof of what happened.

Understanding averages using skunks

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📖STANDARDS

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.SP.B.5 Summarize numerical data sets in relation to their context, such as by:

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.SP.B.5.A Reporting the number of observations.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.SP.B.5.B Describing the nature of the attribute under investigation, including how it was measured and its units of measurement.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.7 Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.

⏰LESSON TIME

30 minutes

📃SUMMARY

In this lesson plan, students will learn how to find the mean and calculate the average and practice finding the average in a game environment. They will learn about skunks and skunk farming through primary source material. Then analyzing historical data, students will calculate the average.

📲TECHNOLOGY REQUIRED

Device with web-browser (Chromebook, laptop or desktop computer)

📚LESSON

Introduce the Assignment

Students can read the assignment, Going on a Skunk Hunt , on their own or teachers can read it to the class and ask any questions (5 minutes)

Through the next three activities – video, reading and assessment – students will gather clues to unlock the “secret password” for the Skunk Hunt and get to play a short online game. Individual links to the video, reading and assessment components are included below for your reference, but are all included in the Skunk Hunt activity as well for ease of student access.

The answer to the Skunk Hunt/secret password is: 3harvestnewyork1911

VIDEO

Watch this animated video explaining how to find the average. The video includes an example problem walking through the process, introduces the formula to find the average and also includes vocabulary to explain that mean and average the same thing. (2:00)

READING

Read this short post, Skunks for Fur and Farming , about the intersection of skunks and agriculture, incorporating information from primary sources and historical data. (5-10 minutes)

ASSESSMENT

In this assessment activity, Playing the Skunk Market ,students will use a table with historical data to solve two to four problems asking students to find the average. Two problems require solving for the average and two problems require solving for the average or estimating the average. (10-15 minutes)

ANSWER KEY AVAILABLE HERE.

RELATED: This lesson plan corresponds with the math standards covered in and refers to content included in Forgotten Trail. Forgotten Trail is recommended as a supplemental resource for this activity. The image at the top of this post is from that game. You can view your students’ progress on mastering these standards by viewing your teacher reports. You can access the Forgotten Trail reports here.

Reading & comparing bar graphs

📖Standards

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.SP.B.5 Statistics & Probability: Summarize numerical data sets in relation to their context.

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.7.RP.A.2.B Ratios & Proportional Relationships: Identify the constant of proportionality (unit rate) in tables, graphs, equations, diagrams, and verbal descriptions of proportional relationships.

⏰Lesson Time

40- 50 minutes

📲Technology Required

Device with web-browser – Chromebook, laptop or desktop computer, iPhone or iPad

📃Summary

This lesson introduces students to reading and comparing bar graphs with proportional relationships. Students receive a slide or handout with four bar graphs and complete a set of cards with questions or complete the activity in Google slides . The lesson ends with an adventure game that includes discussion of interpreting bar graphs.

📚Lesson Plan

Related lesson plan

If you have not watched the videos on Mayan Trading and Distributions, you may want to check out this lesson plan first.

Preparing for the lesson – Options

Print out the cards if students do not have home Internet access or if you want to use the cards to do the activity in class. (Note: Business card stock may not be the best $10 I have spent as a teacher, but it’s high on the list. I don’t know what it is about cards that makes something seem like a game but I have had the greatest success with activities like this one.). Here is a PDF for the cards. If you would like to download the cards to edit and add your own questions, here is a Microsoft Word doc.

If students are learning from home, you can copy the Google slides presentation to your Google classroom and assign to students.

1. Individual Activity

Use this Google slides presentation to introduce and explain the assignment.

Print out the “Graphs” page or display it using a Smartboard, projector or in your Google classroom. Each student / group is required to complete the cards using the graphs provided.

2. Class Activity

After the students have completed the assignment, which should take around 10-15 minutes, have students share their findings to these questions with the class. Discuss and review the different questions and answers that can come from the same set of data.

3. Play Games!

Students can play the AzTech: The Story Begins to practice statistics in a history adventure game. Link available from the games page, select the device on which you want students to play. Available free for Chromebook, Android or iOS.

Assessment

AzTech Games Teacher Reports – Teachers can access standards-aligned student reports including answers to problems, number of correct answers, quiz results and pre-test/post-test results.

Students’ responses in the activities above, both individually and as a group, provide formative assessment of their ability at interpreting and extrapolating from graphical data.

State Standards

Minnesota Math Standard 7.2.2.1 – Represent proportional relationships with tables, verbal descriptions, symbols, equations and graphs; translate from one representation to another. Determine the unit rate (constant of proportionality or slope) given any of these representations.

Distributions and Mayan Trading

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📖Standard

7.SP.A.1 Understand that statistics can be used to gain information about a population by examining a sample of the population; generalizations about a population from a sample are valid only if the sample is representative of that population. Understand that random sampling tends to produce representative samples and support valid inferences.

Minnesota State Standard – History Sub-strand 4, Standard 15 “North America was populated by indigenous nations that had developed a wide range of social structures, political systems, and economic activities, and whose expansive trade networks extended across the continent.”

⏰Time

20- 30 Minutes

📲Technology Required

Device with web-browser – Chromebook, laptop or desktop computer, phone or tablet

📃Summary

The two videos here combine math and social studies, because, clearly, the Maya understood math. The concept of distributions is introduced in the context of trading, explaining why some objects are more valuable. Students play AzTech: Meet the Maya, which teaches measures of central tendency. The lesson concludes with a question and another video on distributions.

📚Lesson Plan

1. Watch video – Mayan Trading (1:57)

The Mayan trading video is based on an idea from one of my favorite history teachers, who says that history is more than just names and dates but also how people lived, what they used, what they did. It also has a bar chart of the relative value of objects. It explains that the Maya traded less common items for more common ones and that items that were more difficult to obtain were more valuable.

2. Play AzTech: Meet the Maya

Next, have students start the AzTech games series. They can play AzTech: Meet the Maya online or using an iPad. We recommend downloading the game onto your iPhone or iPad for better performance.

3. Question to test understanding

José tried to trade a banana for a quetzal feather and a villager threw a spear at him. Why would the villager do that? Explain using math. Extra points if you can discuss distributions in your explanation.

4. Video giving the answer to the word problem on distributions (5:15)

This five-minute video introduces distributions and variability and gives an example of computing a weighted mean from a frequency distribution.

OPTIONAL You can also copy this Google slides presentation to your own classroom if you’d rather modify the explanation for your own lecture. The slides can also be printed out and sent home with students who do not have Internet access.

ASSESSMENT

You can view your students’ progress on mastering these standards by viewing your teacher reports. The link to the teacher dashboard for AzTech: Meet the Maya student reports can be found on this page. You should have received a password during the Growing Math training.

State Standards

Minnesota State Standard 6.4.1.1 – Determine the sample space (set of possible outcomes) for a given experiment and determine which members of the sample space are related to certain events. Sample space may be determined by the use of tree diagrams, tables or pictorial representations.

Related Lesson

Distributions and Mayan Trading (Bilingual English & Spanish) – This lesson is a bilingual version of the lesson above and features resources in English and Spanish.