Introducing Make It Real Learning workbooks

I have recently had the pleasure to add Make It Real Learning workbooks to my site. These books contain real-life math activities with real-life data, companies, and situations. They are written by Frank Wilson.

Arithmetic I



Fractions, Percents, and Decimals I



Linear Functions I


Calculus I



Periodic and Piecewise Functions I

Some examples of the topics included in these activities are: cell phone plans, autism, population growth, cooking, borrowing money, credit cards, life spans, population growth, and music downloads. But there are many more, more than I can list here.

As students work through the problems, they can use the math skills and concepts they have learned in their math curriculum (such as the concept of average or graphing), and apply those to a situation from real life.

Each activity-lesson in the book contains several questions about the situation, starting with basics and going into more in-depth evaluations, and should be adequate for one-two complete class periods.

Why does that benefit you, the teacher? It will motivate the students far more than dull, boring word problems from the textbook. It will show students how mathematics is truly USEFUL. Also:

• The problems are written by an experienced math teacher (Frank Wilson)


• The problems are matched to the learning objectives of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). This means that the concepts and skills required to complete the problems ARE found in typical middle and high school mathematics curriculum. You can simply replace some of the problems in your textbook with these real-life scenarios.
  
  
• These activities are excellent to be used in a small-group setting.
  
  
• Typically, the activities contain challenging parts and therefore allow students to practice real problem solving - not just apply knowledge from textbook examples to other almost identical problems.
  
  
• Gifted students can enjoy the challenge of solving all the questions on their own.

All books include complete solutions to all activities and problems. Please note that Make It Real Learning workbooks do not contain the instruction or explanations of the concepts.

List of available books:

Arithmetic I - for grades 3-6
Fractions, Percents, and Decimals I - for grades 4-8
Fractions, Percents, and Decimals II - for grades 6-11
Sets, Probability, and Statistics I - for grades 6-10

Linear Functions I - for algebra 1 and algebra 2
Linear Functions II - for algebra 1 and algebra 2
Quadratic Functions I - for algebra 1 and algebra 2

Exponential and Logarithmic Functions I
- for algebra 2/precalculus
Periodic and Piecewise Functions I
- for algebra 2/precalculus
Polynomial, Power, Logistic, and Rational Functions I
- for algebra 2/precalculus
Calculus I - for grade 12

Introducing Make It Real Learning workbooks

I have recently had the pleasure to add Make It Real Learning workbooks to my site. These books contain real-life math activities with real-life data, companies, and situations. They are written by Frank Wilson.

Arithmetic I



Fractions, Percents, and Decimals I



Linear Functions I


Calculus I



Periodic and Piecewise Functions I

Some examples of the topics included in these activities are: cell phone plans, autism, population growth, cooking, borrowing money, credit cards, life spans, population growth, and music downloads. But there are many more, more than I can list here.

As students work through the problems, they can use the math skills and concepts they have learned in their math curriculum (such as the concept of average or graphing), and apply those to a situation from real life.

Each activity-lesson in the book contains several questions about the situation, starting with basics and going into more in-depth evaluations, and should be adequate for one-two complete class periods.

Why does that benefit you, the teacher? It will motivate the students far more than dull, boring word problems from the textbook. It will show students how mathematics is truly USEFUL. Also:

• The problems are written by an experienced math teacher (Frank Wilson)


• The problems are matched to the learning objectives of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). This means that the concepts and skills required to complete the problems ARE found in typical middle and high school mathematics curriculum. You can simply replace some of the problems in your textbook with these real-life scenarios.
  
  
• These activities are excellent to be used in a small-group setting.
  
  
• Typically, the activities contain challenging parts and therefore allow students to practice real problem solving - not just apply knowledge from textbook examples to other almost identical problems.
  
  
• Gifted students can enjoy the challenge of solving all the questions on their own.

All books include complete solutions to all activities and problems. Please note that Make It Real Learning workbooks do not contain the instruction or explanations of the concepts.

List of available books:

Arithmetic I - for grades 3-6
Fractions, Percents, and Decimals I - for grades 4-8
Fractions, Percents, and Decimals II - for grades 6-11
Sets, Probability, and Statistics I - for grades 6-10

Linear Functions I - for algebra 1 and algebra 2
Linear Functions II - for algebra 1 and algebra 2
Quadratic Functions I - for algebra 1 and algebra 2

Exponential and Logarithmic Functions I
- for algebra 2/precalculus
Periodic and Piecewise Functions I
- for algebra 2/precalculus
Polynomial, Power, Logistic, and Rational Functions I
- for algebra 2/precalculus
Calculus I - for grade 12

Icosahedron from picnic supplies

This was such a fun video to watch! This guy makes an icosahedron from plastic plates, and then from plastic cups - and one more from just plastic and duct tape.

It can serve as a fun summer math project for kids who love explorations, cutting, gluing, building, and that sort of stuff!

He is hilarious! See the video:


Video from Makezine.com

Read the instructions for the icosahedrons

Find out what is an icosahedron

Icosahedron from picnic supplies

This was such a fun video to watch! This guy makes an icosahedron from plastic plates, and then from plastic cups - and one more from just plastic and duct tape.

It can serve as a fun summer math project for kids who love explorations, cutting, gluing, building, and that sort of stuff!

He is hilarious! See the video:


Video from Makezine.com

Read the instructions for the icosahedrons

Find out what is an icosahedron

Math enrichment problems at MathNotations

Today I want to highlight a blog called Math Notations by Dave Marain that specializes in math enrichment problems such as various type challenges and investigations. And they are quite good!


For example, recently Dave posted a geometry problem, and even gave the answer in his post, but he asked the readers to find DIFFERENT ways to solve the problem.

I encourage you to go see the problem and see how many different ways you can find to solve it!

That is exactly what we can ask students too - especially if you have many students and some of them solve the original problem in no time. You can use the same problem as a basis for further investigations for them.

His blog has "labels" in the sidebar, which makes it easy to find problems on a particular topic or concept.

Math enrichment problems at MathNotations

Today I want to highlight a blog called Math Notations by Dave Marain that specializes in math enrichment problems such as various type challenges and investigations. And they are quite good!


For example, recently Dave posted a geometry problem, and even gave the answer in his post, but he asked the readers to find DIFFERENT ways to solve the problem.

I encourage you to go see the problem and see how many different ways you can find to solve it!

That is exactly what we can ask students too - especially if you have many students and some of them solve the original problem in no time. You can use the same problem as a basis for further investigations for them.

His blog has "labels" in the sidebar, which makes it easy to find problems on a particular topic or concept.