Table of Contents

Jossey-Bass Teacher

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

About This Book

About the Authors

Alignment to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards and ...

How to Use This Resource

Part One - Implementing Math Projects in Your Class

Chapter One - An Overview of Using Math Projects

Your Role as Teacher and Facilitator

Solving Multistep Problems

Developing Math Projects of Your Own

Chapter Two - Managing Math Projects

Organizing Your Class

Building and Maintaining a Positive Classroom Environment

Suggestions for Presenting and Implementing Projects

Conferences with Individuals and Groups

The Importance of Cooperation

Organizing Math Groups

Sharing Results

The Importance of Writing in Math Class

Using Technology in Math Projects

Chapter Three - Evaluating Math Projects

Observation Logs

Checklists

Point Systems

Evaluating Writing

Student Self-Evaluation

Teacher Sefl-Evaluation

Part Two - The Projects

Chapter Four - Math and Science

Project 1 - Earth by the Numbers

Project 2 - Geometry All Around Us

Project 3 - Planning a Spring Flower Garden

Project 4 - Planning My School Lunch for a Week

Project 5 - Weather Observers

Project 6 - Out of This World

Chapter Five - Math and Social Studies

Project 7 - When in Rome . . .

Project 8 - The Mathematics Hall of Fame

Project 9 - The Numbers in a Travel Brochure

Project 10 - Making a Scale Drawing

Project 11 - Favorites

Project 12 - Scavenger Hunt for Math in Our Lives

Chapter Six - Math and Language Arts

Project 13 - A Class Math Newsletter

Project 14 - Family Matters and Math

Project 15 - Writing Poetry About Math

Project 16 - Writing and Presenting Math Messages

Project 17 - Writing and Performing Math Skits

Project 18 - Writing Math Word Problems for Other Students

Project 19 - Math Journals

Chapter Seven - Math and Art

Project 20 - Creating a Billboard That Advertises Math

Project 21 - Creating a Math Cartoon

Project 22 - Painting a T-Shirt with a Math Slogan

Project 23 - Exploring Tangrams

Project 24 - Picture This (Using Polygons to Model Fractions)

Project 25 - Making a Tessellation

Project 26 - Making a Three - Dimensional Paper Sculpture from a ...

Chapter Eight - Math and Recreation

Project 27 - The Math in a Favorite Sport

Project 28 - Inventing a Math Board Game

Project 29 - Creating Math Puzzles

Project 30 - Exploring Math Web Sites

Project 31 - The Math in Planning a Birthday Party

Chapter Nine - Math and Life Skills

Project 32 - Measuring Up in Metric and Customary Units

Project 33 - Buying Books for the School Library

Project 34 - It’s About Time

Project 35 - Numbers in the News

Project 36 - A Class Math Tournament

Project 37 - Creating a Review for a Math Test

Projecet 38 - The Presenters

Project 39 - Setting Up a Math Portfolio

Project 40 - My Best Day in Math Class

Jossey-Bass Teacher

Jossey-Bass Teacher provides educators with practical knowledge and tools to create a positive and lifelong impact on student learning. We offer classroom-tested and research-based teaching resources for a variety of grade levels and subject areas. Whether you are an aspiring, new, or veteran teacher, we want to help you make every teaching day your best.

From ready-to-use classroom activities to the latest teaching framework, our value-packed books provide insightful, practical, and comprehensive materials on the topics that matter most to K-12 teachers. We hope to become your trusted source for the best ideas from the most experienced and respected experts in the field.

Copyright © 2009 by Judith A. and Gary Robert Muschla. All rights reserved.

Published by Jossey-Bass
A Wiley Imprint
989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741—www.josseybass.com

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Permission is given for individual classroom teachers to reproduce the pages and illustrations for classroom use. Reproduction of these materials for an entire school system is strictly forbidden.

Readers should be aware that Internet Web sites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

Jossey-Bass books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact Jossey-Bass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-956-7739, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3986, or fax 317-572-4002.

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ISBN 978-0-4702-6198-9

For Erin

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our many colleagues for their support, inspiration, and encouragement over the years.

We are grateful to Kate Bradford, our editor at Jossey-Bass, for her support and guidance throughout the entire process of writing this book.

We also thank our daughter, Erin, a math teacher in the Monroe Public School System in New Jersey, for reading through our manuscript, finding our oversights, and offering suggestions.

Our thanks also to Diane Turso for proofreading this book and helping to set it in its final form.

Finally, we thank our students, who have made teaching a rewarding and enjoyable career for us.

About This Book

Competence in mathematics is essential for success in our society. A mere understanding of basic math is no longer enough. Today’s students need to be able to think logically; to gather, analyze, and organize data; to make decisions; and to solve complex, multistep problems. They must master high-level critical-thinking skills. Effective math instruction can build the foundation on which such skills can flourish.

To prepare students for the demanding future that awaits them, math teachers must provide a program that shows students how math is used in real life, promotes collaboration, encourages the use of technology, fosters the expression of ideas both orally and in writing, and helps students appreciate that math is not an isolated subject but is connected to other disciplines. The projects presented in this book will help you to achieve these goals.

Math projects offer students many benefits. Perhaps the most important benefit is that when students work on activities based on real-life situations, they see how the math skills they are learning may be applied to the real world. Math projects open the door to bringing other subjects and disciplines into the math class, and students quickly recognize that math is essential to their lives. Math projects also provide students with opportunities to work together cooperatively to solve problems that might be overwhelming for one person to manage. Furthermore, when students collaborate on a project, students of all abilities have the chance to contribute to the solution. Everyone can share in the success.

Hands-On Math Projects with Real-Life Applications, Grades 3-5, consists of two parts. Part One focuses on management and implementation, Part Two contains the math projects. The projects support the Standards and Focal Points of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and they meet the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act that call for project-based learning, problem-solving strategies in mathematics, and the integration of technology into the classroom.

About the Authors

Judith A. Muschla received her B.A. degree in mathematics from Douglass College at Rutgers University and is certified to teach K-12. She taught math in South River, New Jersey, for more than twenty-five years, at various levels at both South River High School and South River Middle School. In her capacity as a team leader at the middle school, she helped revise the mathematics curriculum to reflect the Standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, coordinated interdisciplinary units, and conducted math workshops for teachers and parents. She was a recipient of the 1990-1991 Governor’s Teacher Recognition Program award in New Jersey, and was named 2002 South River Public School District Teacher of the Year. She has also been a member of the Review Panel for New Jersey’s Mathematics Core Curriculum Content Standards.

Gary Robert Muschla received his B.A. and M.A.T degrees from Trenton State College and taught in Spotswood, New Jersey, for more than twenty-five years. He spent many of those years teaching math at the elementary school level. He has also taught reading and writing and is a successful author. He is a member of the Authors Guild and the National Writers Association. He has written several resources for teachers, among them Writing Workshop Survival Kit; The Writing Teacher’s Book of Lists; Ready-to-Use Reading Proficiency Lessons and Activities, 10th Grade Level; Ready-to-Use Reading Proficiency Lessons and Activities, 8th Grade Level; Ready-to-Use Reading Proficiency Lessons and Activities, 4th Grade Level; Reading Workshop Survival Kit; and English Teacher’s Great Books Activities Kit, all published by Jossey-Bass.

Together, Judith and Gary Muschla have coauthored eight math books published by Jossey-Bass: The Math Teacher’s Problem-a-Day, Grades 4-8; Hands-On Math Projects with Real-Life Applications, Grades 6-12; The Math Teacher’s Book of Lists; Math Games: 180 Reproducible Activities to Motivate, Excite, and Challenge Students, Grades 6-12; Algebra Teacher’s Activities Kit; Math Smart! Over 220 Ready-to-Use Activities to Motivate and Challenge Students, Grades 6-12; Geometry Teacher’s Activities Kit; and Math Starters! 5- to 10-Minute Activities to Make Kids Think, Grades 6-12.

Alignment to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards and Focal Points

The projects in this book support the Standards and Focal Points of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), with specific emphasis on the following mathematical processes:

• Problem solving

• Reasoning

• Communication

• Connections

• Representation

An essential part of learning math is problem solving. As students seek the solution to a problem, they must draw on their own knowledge, experience, and skills. They must decide what methods or procedures to use, and they must undertake various actions such as conducting research, analyzing data, organizing information, and drawing conclusions. In their efforts to solve the problem, they reinforce previously learned skills, acquire new skills, and gain greater understanding of mathematics. By presenting students with a variety of practical, engaging problems to solve, you will be supporting the Problem Solving Standard.

As students engage in the math projects contained in this book, they will have the opportunity to make and justify conjectures. By listening to and evaluating the reasoning of their peers, they will hone their own reasoning skills. These and similar actions support the Reasoning Standard.

The projects also support the Communication Standard. Because effective communication depends on clear thought and expression, communication encourages students to think critically, formulate their ideas, and express those ideas with mathematical precision. Communication gives students the opportunity to organize, consolidate, and state their ideas; to consider and evaluate the ideas of others; and to further their understanding of math. An important part of every project in this book is sharing the results of problem solving through formal and informal presentations.

Although students are often taught mathematical skills in isolation or in packets of information, mathematics is a broad, complex subject in which ideas are interconnected and often extend to other disciplines. As students work on projects, they will find relationships between ideas that will broaden their understanding of problems and solutions and help them appreciate how math is interwoven through all parts of the world. Thus, working on math projects supports the Connection Standard.

The projects in this book also support the Representation Standard. Mathematical ideas are represented with notations, symbols, and figures. Typical examples of representations include numbers, expressions, equations, diagrams, charts, tables, and graphs. As students work on projects, they represent mathematical ideas in a variety of ways, which then become the means to explore, model, and develop mathematical concepts. A thorough understanding of mathematical representations will serve students well in their continuing study of math.

Along with supporting the Standards, the projects in this book also adhere to the NCTM Focal Points and Connections to the Focal Points, addressing those areas that are recommended for content emphasis in grades 3-5. The major areas include numbers and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis.

In Table I.1, checkmarks indicate how each project aligns with the NCTM Standards, Focal Points, and Connections to the Focal Points. For some projects, there are no checkmarks for either the Focal Points or their Connections, because the skills in these projects depend on student-selected content.

Table I.1. Standards Grid

How to Use This Resource

Hands-On Math Projects with Real-Life Applications, Grades 3-5, is divided into two parts. Part One, “Implementing Math Projects in Your Class,” contains three chapters devoted to incorporating, managing, and evaluating math projects that will help you use the projects in this book effectively. Chapter One, “An Overview of Using Math Projects,” provides specific guidelines for implementing math projects; Chapter Two, “Managing Math Projects,” details a variety of classroom management techniques and suggestions; and Chapter Three, “Evaluating Math Projects,” offers methods for assessing and grading the work of your students. Each of these chapters includes several lists that summarize information, making it easy for you to find the facts you need. For example, you will find that your role will expand when math projects become a part of your program. Your Role as Teacher and Facilitator, in Chapter One, outlines the many tasks you may assume when your students work on a project.

Each chapter of Part One also includes several reproducibles that can help you establish the classroom routines necessary for the successful implementation of math projects. For example, distributing copies of Chapter Two’s Rules for Working in Math Groups, which highlights the behaviors that characterize effective collaboration, will help students to behave appropriately when working together and achieve the goals you set for them.

Part Two contains forty projects divided into six major sections, which is useful for planning interdisciplinary units. The projects provide a broad range of instructional options. Each project stands alone and may be used to introduce, enhance, or conclude a unit or topic. The projects may also be used for enrichment or extra credit. Although many of the projects are designed for students working as partners or in groups, several require students to work individually. Some projects may be completed within two class periods; others may require three or four periods. Several projects may be used as ongoing activities. For example, Project 13, A Class Math Newsletter, in Chapter Six; Project 19, Math Journals, in Chapter Six; or Project 39, Setting up a Math Portfolio, in Chapter Nine may be carried out for a marking period, a semester, or an entire year.

All of the projects follow the same format. First, information for the teacher is presented: background on the topic, goals of the project, the math skills covered, any special materials and equipment that are needed, development, wrap-up, and extensions. This material is followed by a student guide, which offers strategies and suggestions to help students complete the project. Data sheets and worksheets then provide students with additional information or a specialized work space. The student guides, data sheets, and worksheets are numbered according to each project and are reproducible.

We suggest that you use this book as a resource, selecting the projects that will enhance or supplement your curriculum. The forty projects offer a variety of real-life situations that require students to apply specific math skills and that will help them realize the relevance of math in their lives.

We trust that you will find this book to be a valuable resource to your instructional program. Our best wishes to you for a successful and rewarding school year.

Judith and Gary Muschla

Part One

Implementing Math Projects in Your Class

Chapter One

An Overview of Using Math Projects

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!