Hello, I was looking for some real world math projects for fifth grade that I could give some of my challenge students. Anything that you have tried in the past with much success. I was thinking maybe have them go through a cataloug, build wardrobe and calculate a certain percetange off the product. Giving them so much fake money to spend. Or do like a budget project. I am just not sure. thanks
I like your idea. We've had success having the kids plan and make products to sell at a business fair- handmade cartoon books, duct tape wallets, little crafts, cookies etc. that their classmates buy using play money they've earned through classroom jobs. build a model house- 2d plans to 3d model with ratios. Calculate total square footage, amount of carpet and paint needed, volume for air conditioning... stock market competition- each kid gets $100 pretend bucks and invests as he or she chooses, watches the newspaper for gains and losses- great for multiplying by fractions. Geometry robots- make posterboard 2d robots that have to have various shapes- circles, ovals, parallelograms, rhombus... for body parts. Brass brad hinges on elbows and knees. Research famous mathematicians and make a baseball card....
When I need good math stuff I go to the MathMatters4-5 group at groups.yahoo. They are always posting new things there, mostly free.
One of my standards is for students to know how to calculate perimeter and area of gridded squares. I have them to draw off "their dream house" and then calculate the perimeter and area of each room on graph paper. They come up with very unique names for rooms--the chocolate room, the swimming pool room,etc, etc. It is always one of the favorite class projects.
I just had my high performing 3rd graders do a ratio project. They measured the circumference of their heads, necks, wrists, waists, and thighs. Then they wrote ratios for head:neck, wrist:waist, waist:thigh. They then wrote a minireport about what they found and whether others' ratios were similar or different. Why did they think they were different or similar. HTH!
I have my kids plan a city....drawn to scale. They have to incorporate a number of geometric shapes within their 2D drawing. They get to name the streets and schools....which they love. Lots of fun.
