A teammate and I are doing a project in math where our classes are working together to find the math around the school. It is actually a pretty neat project, and the kids seem to be enjoying working on it. In the theme of it, I decided to make up story problems reflecting the "math" in my teacher world...
1. (Thanks, Ms. T, for supplying this one! Your students-my future 312 residents-are always an inspiration!)
A third grader received money for track and field day. She gave 10 of those dollars to one boy in the class that she has a crush on. She then gives Lucky Charm, another kid in the class, $5.00 for his overdue library books. She buys ice cream for four friends at lunch, and each ice cream costs $0.65. She also gave a dollar to a kid in another 3rd grade class, but the kid spent the money before she could ask for it back. She gave another dollar to the resident bad boy as protection money. She has 40 cents left and is very upset. How much time do you think elapsed before her mom realized she gave her 20 dollars instead of a buck?
2. Every time it rains, Shirley has difficulty coming to school, often times not coming at all. This morning, there was a monsoon, and still 93% of my class arrived to school. It was then sunny all of the rest of the day, so hot that the rain puddles began to evaporate by noontime. What is the probability that Shirley will come in tomorrow with a note citing "rain" as an excuse for absence?
3. 8 out of 12 students met my expectations for one of my learning objectives. I needed at least 75% of my class to meet it to get $1,500. By how many kids did I miss my goal? (and no, it wasn't because of Bill-he actually did well on both of his tests-way to go! All of my kids showed good growth-even the ones who didn't meet goal, but that didn't matter.)
4. KIS is scheduled to take her class to lunch at 11:15 and pick them up in 30 minutes. If she decides to go at 11:05 instead and picks them up at 11:45 instead, how long has she now extended her lunch? How many other teachers do you think she annoys as a result? How many reprimands do you think she gets?
5. While making copies on the "new" copier in the lounge, my paper kept mis feeding in the bypass tray at the top. What sort of angle does the creased paper make?
6. Our beloved principal made countless demands for us to schedule our conferences about our objectives. She reminded us every morning, in email, at all our meetings. I schedule my appointment begrudgingly. I rush the kids to finish, am thorough in grading and fight with the copier to prepare things for the meeting. I arrive five minutes before my appointment time. I wait 15 minutes until someone informs me that she has left campus and gone to lunch. This is all scheduled during my conference period and on the school calender. At what point in the day do you think I was asked to come in to do my conference?
a) reschedule for another day
b) afterschool
c) halfway during my conference/planning
d) the moment my conference period is over and my kids are all waiting for me to take them to recess...
How much of my conference/planning did I actually get to use if I have 45 minutes total?
Yeah, yeah yeah...and that was all from the last two days. Imagine how much math there is every day.