What's a meter squared?

I tutor 4th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students in math.  As I was working with my sixth graders on area, it became clear to me that they did not actually understand what one meter squared was.  To them it was just a unit, a letter with an exponent.  At that point I took out a meter stick and a piece of chalk.  I explained to them that a meter squared was simply a square that was a meter long on each side.  So I had them take the meter stick and the piece of chalk and begin to draw a squared meter on my classroom floor.  From there, I had the students estimate the area of my classroom is squared meters.  In this short tutoring session, it became clear how important visuals and hands on activities are for students. It makes their learning experience much more meaningful.

Discounts & Markups

Of course when teaching percents and decimals, a major application is discounts and markups.  Although students see sales and discounts daily, many of them do not know how to calculate them.  I put a lot of focus on this lesson because it is such a practical skill that students will use for the rest of their lives.  This year, I borrowed an idea I found on Pinterest, which of course I cannot find now.
 Students had to create their own store and make an advertisement for five products.  On their advertisement they were required to list the product, a picture, an original selling price, and a discount (in the form of a percent).  In addition to their advertisement, they needed to provide an answer key with the new sale prices based on the discounts.  The next day, I hung up their advertisements and during class they got to "shop."  They filled out a sheet of their purchases on which they calculated how much money they saved.  The students liked this even more than I expected and were engaged for the entire activity.  I will definitely be doing this activity again!

Common Core Math Standards:

7.RP.2.c Represent proportional relationships by equations.

Scale Drawing

I am currently teaching one of my favorite chapters in pre-algebra.  It is all about proportions and part of that is scale drawings.  Each year I teach this, I truly feel like I teach it better and more clearly.  It really is amazing to step back and watch yourself grow as a teacher.  Anyways, this year I wanted to have students make their own scale drawing.  At first I considered having students create a scale drawing of a buildings in this Chicago skyline which would then be displayed outside my classroom.  However, after more thought I concluded it would be hard to make the buildings look as realistic as I would have wanted.   So instead, I thought I would incorporate a piece of art.  I went with this idea because I do have an interest in art and because I try to expose my students to it as much as possible since we no longer have an art teacher.  Anyways, I chose Composition A by Piet Mondrian.  As a class, we assessed the amount of space we had for our artwork and determined a starting ratio for our proportion.  From there,  I had students work in groups to draw a set of rectangles according to our first ratio.  I would definitely do this project again!  Here is the final product :)

Common Core Math Standards:

Analyze proportional relationships and use them to solve real-world and mathematical problems.

2.  Recognize and represent proportional relationships between quantities.

Objectives:

Students will:

-identify Piet Mondrian's artwork 

-determine the new size of part of the artwork using proportions

Assessment:

Students were assessed based on the accuracy of their calculations.