How many times have your students asked "When are we ever going to use this in real life? Through the years, and probably through the centuries, teachers have struggled to make math meaningful by providing students with problems and examples demonstrating its applications in everyday life. Now, however, technology makes it possible for students to experience the value of math in daily life, instead of just reading about it.

This week, Education World tells you about eight great math sites plus a few bonus sites that demonstrate relevance while teaching relevant skills.

Let's begin at the Lemonade Standan online version of a classic computer game. Each day, they must decide how many cups of lemonade to prepare, how much money to charge for each cup, and how much to spend on advertising. Their decisions are based on production costs and on the weather forecast -- which isn't always accurate.

Students have 25 days to either make a go of the business or go broke. Can they learn enough about the vagaries of business to make a profit? Students of all ages will enjoy the challenge provided by this simple game, which simulates some real business challenges and demonstrates how math fluency can help overcome them.

Math at the Mall 2 | irudivupic.web.fc2.com

Older students, especially those with a new or imminent driver's license, will be both fascinated and educated by Calculating a Car Payment. Here, students visit a virtual used-car lot and select a car.

Then they use formulas that include complex fractions and large exponents to calculate the monthly payments on their virtual dream car. This is a short lesson, but students may be inspired to use it as a springboard to other automobile-based activities. For example, Online Math Applications' Trips page contains mini-lessons on the costs of leasing, owning, and driving cars.

Students can examine such topics as the relationship between the number of stops and the number of possible routes, how to determine the shortest route, and the relationship between speed and braking distance. The site contains formulas and quizzes and provides opportunities for students to create their own quizzes using the math and real life data they've learned. Your students may not be ready to drive or run their own businesses, but it's never too early for them to begin to save.

Several sites can help students get started. The Minta comprehensive site designed for middle- and high-school students, provides lots of financial information and a number of useful tools. They learn about the federal deficit and check out the National Debt Clock in The Government, and explore the world of credit cards in Spending. Students can also learn about Making a Budget and discover the relationship between Learning and Earning.

The site includes lesson plans and classroom activities, a financial dictionary, quizzes and games, and a little fantasy too. Can students learn enough to earn enough to escape from the planet Knab, where the natives "emit a foul smell and leave a slippery slime trail as they move about"? Only time will tell! In My Money, students learn that the financial planning process is made up of three steps:.

Students are guided through the financial planning process -- first with a series of questions to help them identify their own financial goals and then with a printable spreadsheet that helps them identify their spending habits. The primary feature of the site, however, is the Moneyopolis SM game.

Kids need to register to play. In Moneyopolis, "a town where money and math smarts are rewarded," students visit seven town centers. To enter each center, they must solve three puzzles, assemble a lock, and open the door.

Once inside, students earn money by correctly answering math-related questions and by investing their earnings wisely. They can also spend money -- on luxuries as well as on necessities. It's real citizenship -- and it's just plain fun. Students may not even notice that it's also math! Just so YOU do, the site also includes a For Teachers section, featuring suggestions for using Moneyopolis as an educational resource, ideas for off-line educational activities, sample lesson plans, and explanations of the correlation of Moneyopolis math problems to NCTM standards.

The site promises a future feature that will allow teachers to review scores and statistics for their own students. Moneyopolis SM requires Flash PPC.

Money Game

Of course, money isn't everything -- in the real world or in math. One of the most complete and self-sufficient math units on the Web is Project SkyMath: Making Mathematical Connections -- Using the Science and Language of Patterns to Explore the Weather. This multidisciplinary curriculum for middle-school students uses real-time weather data as a basis for hands-on math activities.

Originally developed as an inter-school activity, in which teams of students exchanged data via e-mail, the unit is now available for independent use by all teachers and their students.

The project's 16 lessons involve data analysis, number relationships and graphing, patterns and functions, statistics, and measurement. Students access real weather data, learn about the Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature scales, and find out how to convert from one scale to another. They study the history of weather prediction, develop symbol sets, prepare graphs, predict changes, solve problems, and discover rules.

In a geography link, students locate different geographic areas and determine temperature variations. Language arts activities include preparing and presenting the work.

The unit includes BLMs, assessment tools, and almost anything else you could possibly need. It even adjusts the curriculum for teachers without Internet connections. This unit will keep your students busy and engrossed for weeks!

Some parts of the online unit require Acrobat Reader. Ciese Classroom Projects is another great site with a variety of real-world math problems. Maintained by the Center for Improved Engineering and Science Education, the site includes elementary- middle- and higher-level projects -- most of which are appropriate for students of all ages.

For example, in Down the Drain: Water Use Surveyan elementary activity, students chart their own water use, compare it to that of students around the world, and answer questions about what they've learned. A middle-school project, Human Genetics: A Worldwide Search for the Dominant Traithas students analyze the number of dominant and recessive genetic traits in their own families to determine which are controlled by dominant genes.

If none of these activities pique your interest, however, you might use one of the following sites to create your own:. Online Math Applications This ThinkQuest Junior site includes discussions, questions, and quizzes to help students link math to music, history, science, travel, and investing.

Most sections include hands-on activities. Mathline PBS provides lessons and activities that connect math to everyday life.

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Fred Jones Emma McDonald Dr. Ken Shore School Issues: Geneva, Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; margin-left: Math in Everyday Life. MONEY Let's begin at the Lemonade Standan online version of a classic computer game. In My Money, students learn that the financial planning process is made up of three steps: What do you want?

What do you have? How do you get what you want? MONEY CAN'T BUY YOU If none of these activities pique your interest, however, you might use one of the following sites to create your own: EW Professional Development PD content to get you through the day. Trending Report Card Comments It's report card time and you face the prospect of writing constructive, insightful, and original comments on a couple dozen report cards or more.

Not with Ed World's help! You've reached the end of another grading period, and what could be more daunting than the task of composing insightful, original, and unique comments about every child in your class?

The following positive statements will help you tailor your comments to specific children and highlight their strengths. You can also use our statements to indicate a need for improvement.

Turn the words around a bit, and you will transform each into a goal for a child to work toward. Sam cooperates consistently with others becomes Sam needs to cooperate more consistently with others, and Sally uses vivid language in writing may instead read With practice, Sally will learn to use vivid language in her writing.

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There you will find the right words to keep your comments fresh and accurate. We have organized our report card comments by category. Read the entire list or click one of the category links below to jump to that list. AttitudeBehaviorCharacterCommunication SkillsGroup WorkInterests and TalentsParticipationSocial SkillsTime ManagementWork Habits Attitude The student: Communication Skills The student: Group Work The student: Interests and Talents The student: Social Skills The student: Time Management The student: Work Solve math problems earn money The student: Report Card Thesaurus Looking for some great adverbs and adjectives to bring to life the comments that you put on report cards?

Go beyond the stale and repetitive With this list, your notes will always be creative and unique. Use These Activities to Wind Up Learning as the School Year Winds Down The last few days of the school year are upon you, and you're at a loss for what to do.

Do you emphasize fun or attempt to squeeze how to make money fast on old school runescape some last-minute learning?

Education World offers suggestions for keeping kids focused during the last hours of the school year. As days grow warmer and summer beckons, quite often the kids are tired and restless. What's a teacher to do?

A couple of years ago, a teacher posted the following idea to an email list I subscribed to. I admired that teacher, whose project for the last days of school was not only fun but also challenged students to use what they had learned in the previous months. These last two weeks of class, my kids average stock trader salary working in groups on a "final exam" project.

Each group is given a latitude and longitude coordinate. The students create a culture for the coordinates. They need to describe the climate, geography, shelters, clothing, food, economy, traditions, values, and so on of their imaginary cultures.

They need to consider a multitude of variables that draw on the work we've done during the year. During the last two days of class, the students demonstrate their cultures. Fun and learning—that's what many teachers think the last days of school should be about! More Learning Activities for the "Winding Down" Days Are you looking for other project ideas for the last days of school?

Your students might get a kick out of some of these. Produce a TV Commercial. Challenge students to create their own new breakfast cereals. Each student will create packaging and a TV commercial pitch to go along with it. Record students as they present their TV commercials! Invite students to create their own alphabetical autobiographies.

B is for Bonnie; that's my sister's name. C is for Cub Scouts; That's my favorite activity. Adapt the ABC book idea, and challenge students to learn about a topic they want to explore. For example, students might be interested in the Civil War, music, authors, Hawaii, sports, or plants. Gather samples of student work that you've been setting aside all year long, and invite students to make a Second-Grade, Third-Grade, Fourth-Grade or any year, any subject Scrapbook.

Other Outdoor Physics Experiments. Many schools save the last days of school for their annual "egg drop" activity. Each student works within guidelines to fashion a container for an egg so that the egg won't break when the student drops it from an established height -- the school's third-floor window, for example.

Another idea for fun and education—put on a play! Students might write their own script, or you might use a script you find online. If you're looking for a great resource, see the Education World story All the Free paper option trading tips in nifty a Stage!

Keep kids reading right up to the last bell by offering special classroom or schoolwide reading theme days. You'll find tons of ideas in the Education World story Reading Activities for Read-In! Scavenger Hunt for Info. Plan a scavenger hunt for information! Develop questions cyprus forex brokers problems books or websites--make sure each student in the class has access to a mix of resources.

Give prizes to the teams who come up with the greatest number of correct answers! Still More Fun Ideas! Maybe you're looking to put a little more emphasis on fun during the last days of school. A few more ideas follow. T-Shirt Memories When Donna Thomas, a teacher at Heritage Prep Middle School in Orlando, Florida, was teaching first grade, she had each of her students bring a white T-shirt to school on one of the last days of the year.

Thomas painted each child's hand with bright-colored paint; then each student pressed his or her handprint onto the T-shirt. The students signed their names under their handprints. Finally, students went around to one other's desks and collected autographs. They used thick, pointy-tipped, permanent black markers to sign the T-shirts. Of course, ice cream is good any time of year -- but this activity is a great small-group activity for the last days of school! I have seen some similar recipes using self-sealing plastic bags, but I can vouch for this one -- you'll make the best ice cream you'll ever have!

Teachers might adapt the recipe, depending on the size of the group or whether they want small groups of students to make their own batches.

Tin-Can Ice Cream Ice cream without an ice-cream maker! Tape the lid on the can securely with strapping tape. Place the "filled" small coffee can inside the large coffee can. Pack the large can with crushed ice around the smaller can. Place the lid on the large coffee can and tape securely with strapping tape. Roll the can back and forth for ten minutes. Then open the outer can. Remove the inner can. Remove the lid and stir the mixture with a rubber spatula. Scrape the insides of the can.

Do not allow mixture to become liquid. Replace the lid on the small can. Drain the ice water from the larger can. Insert the small filled can. Pack it with more ice and salt. Roll it back and forth for five more minutes. A Penny for Luck Finally, if you're looking for a positive message to leave for your students, teacher Robert Courtmanche agreed to let us share his end-of-year message to students. The wording of that message, penned several years ago by Courtemanche, follows: My graduation gift to you is a penny, but why?

Look at the penny and you will understand. The year is —so you will always remember this time. The word LIBERTY—as they say in the Navy, you are now "at liberty," and that means you are free to do as you like. Don't waste that freedom. IN GOD WE TRUST—you must trust in someone or something; you can't go through life alone. Trust in yourself, trust in God, trust the life you make.

A penny may be worth only one cent, and you can't buy much with a penny anymore. However, every dollar is made up of pennies, and every kid's piggy bank starts with one penny. The penny, like each of you, is not made of pure silver or gold—but surely if you put enough pennies together, they will amount to something. I ask that you go out into the world and amount to something. Set your own value on life, set your own standards and goals.

And, in case you need it Here's a penny for luck. Feel free to use the poem as-is or adapt to students in your grade level or adjust to reflect your personal style. This is just a stepping off point for ideas to make the last days of school memorable. Please share your own ideas in the comments below. Activities for the Last Days of School. Fun Grammar Activities Learning grammar has been compared to other fun things, like having teeth pulled or being assigned detention.

Grade 7 Math Problems

But it needn't be a painful experience with these five lessons that help teach grammar without the hammer! Teaching the yearly grammar unit can be like giving a child cough medicine. Some students take it without flinching; others- those with a mental block about grammar- flinch at the mere mention of the word.

Do you use Education World's Every-Day Edits to reinforce students' grammar, punctuation, and spelling skills? We offer a weekly activity for primary grade students and daily practice for students in grades 3-up. Daily practice and reinforcement are sure to improve your students' test scores, so check out our Every-Day Edits today. See these additional resources from Education World for links to more great grammar!

We all know that grammar skills are essential to students' success on standardized tests and college entrance exams, in their ability to communicate orally and in writing, and in nearly all other areas of life! So the more fun we can have with grammar—and the more varied approaches we can use to teach it—the more likely our students are to 'get it.

These lessons help you lessen the pain, if you will. FIVE LESSONS FOR TEACHING GRAMMAR Click each of the five lesson headlines below for a complete teaching resource. Appropriate grade levels for each lesson appear in parentheses. Synonym Scramble A fun activity reinforces synonyms and builds vocabulary skills.

Grades K Verb-Adverb Charades Verbs and adverbs take center stage in this lively activity. Grades Proper Noun Gallery Walk Activity A gallery walk activity helps reinforce the concept of proper nouns. Grades Pair Editing Students share their edits and then edit solo. Two humorous work are also sheets included. Grades Parts-of-Speech Tall Tales Kids write their own fill-in-the-blank tall tales. Receive timely lesson ideas and PD tips. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter and receive top education news, lesson ideas, teaching tips and more!

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