Monday, July 23, 2012

Fractions, Decimals, & Percents-Making a Real Life Connection.


     When I was in elementary school, I remember talking about nationalities and I shared that I was 1/2 Polish, 1/2 German, and 1/2 Irish.   At the time I didn't understand why I got a laugh from that until I caught on to fractions in math class (talk about relating concepts to other subjects).  I actually remember thinking, ahhhhhhh!  This is another life experience that reminds me how differently kids think and the different rates at which they catch on to certain concepts.  I wonder if my teacher had  included a variety of examples pertaining to fractions in her instruction, if I would have figured it out before I spoke out loud.  I guess we will never know...

     There are so many ways to connect the concept of fractions, decimals, and percents to real life situations.  Baking, shopping, sports,  money, etc.   I have managed to use baking with my kids to slip in teaching moments this summer, shhhhhh!  As they measured out the ingredients, we didn't always have exactly the right measuring tools so we had to figure it out by discussing and converting. The  1 cup and the 1/2 cup were dirty, so how else can we measure 1 cup?  My son used the 1/4 cup four times.  Hopefully, this will come back to him during a math test and he will be able to apply it. My older son wanted a new pair of shoes that were on sale and he had to figure out the percent off and the new price to determine if he had enough money.  He can also connect this to other math questions in school.   I have used this myself this summer as we have been remodeling our home and we had to figure out how much things would cost installed or done ourselves to get the most for our money.  We wanted carpet and tile put in but could not afford it.  By tiling ourselves, and choosing a tile on sale, we only spent 1/5 of the flooring allowance which left 4/5 or 80% or .8 of our budget to be spent on an upgrade on carpet and installation. Is this a real life word problem or what?

     The point is,  students can't always make these connections on their own.  Teachers need to broaden their instruction methods by showing the connection between real life experiences and the math concepts being taught.  We all know that there is more than one way to look at something so we better be prepared to show them!  I will leave you today with a fun website for kids to practice converting percents and also with a little math humor...
http://www.mathplayground.com/percent_shopping.html



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