Math Lesson Starters for the Common Core, Grades 6-8

Activities Aligned to the Standards and Assessments

Paige Graiser

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138023239
• eBook ISBN: 9781317690931
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The best way to prepare students for the Common Core State Standards in Math is through daily practice. This book provides engaging, practical lesson starters you can use each day to help middle school students become proficient in the complex mathematical thinking required by the Common Core.

The lesson starters in this book are…

• reproducible and ready-to-use in the classroom;
• aligned with the five domains of the Common Core State Standards in Math;
• written to elicit the type of deep thinking that students need to succeed on the non-traditional PARCC and Smarter Balanced assessments; and
• powerful formative assessment tools to assist teachers in diagnosing student misconceptions so that daily lessons can be fine-tuned to meet the immediate learning needs of their students.

Lesson starters not only aid instruction but also cut back on classroom management problems, since students get to work right when the bell rings. This book will help you engage students, save planning time, and bring all students to success in math!

Unit 1
CCSS-M Domain RP

Ratios & Proportional Relationships

Go down deep enough into anything and you will find mathematics.

Dean Schlicter

Ratios & Proportional Relationships

In the middle grades, the CCSS domain of Ratios & Proportional Relationships builds upon students’ elementary-school math work in measurement, multiplication, and division. Ideally, this domain should be taught within the context of real-world applications. Ratios and proportions are an integral part of daily life and many careers. In the workplace, doctors and nurses determine drug doses on the basis of a patient’s weight, while a banker calculates the exchange rate for a foreign currency. At home, ratios and proportional reasoning are involved in everyday activities such as mixing powdered baby formula, calculating a car’s MPG, and determining which laundry detergent is the best buy. By providing students with a true understanding of ratios and proportions, we are not only helping our students pass the next test; we are providing them with a critical skill that will make them better consumers and better equipped to take care of themselves and their future families.

Sixth Grade

For grade 6, the concepts included in this domain are designed to expand the types of problems that students can solve by applying multiplication and division. Most of the problem solving at this level centers around rates and ratios, and students will use these concepts to explore simple drawings, find missing values in a table, and convert units of measurement. Students at grade 6 will also model ratios and rates using tables, tape diagrams, and double number lines.

Seventh Grade

For grade 7, students will be asked to apply their knowlege of ratios and rates to solve both one-step and multistep ratio and percent problems involving tax, tips, and percent of increase. Students at grade 7 will also explore problems that include scale drawings, test for equivalent ratios, begin graphing proportional relationships, and explore unit rates as the measure of the steepness of a line (slope).

Eighth Grade

At grade 8, the domain of Ratios and Proportional Relationships is replaced with Functions. In this domain, students will be required to apply their knowledge of ratio, rate, and proportion as they formulate and reason with expressions and equations. Their work will also include modeling with linear equations and solving linear equations as well as systems of linear equations.

Rate Your Knowledge Proportional Relationships

Think about the terms listed in this chart. Put an X in the boxes that best describe your knowledge of each term.

Teaching Tip

Knowledge rating activities allow students to access and assess their prior knowledge. They are a great strategy to use at the beginning of a new unit of instruction.

Ratios and Roses

Twins Jorge and Joel wanted to buy roses for their grandmother. The local florist was selling a dozen roses for $30.00.

Can different ratios be written for this situation?
Who is correct in his thinking, Jorge or Joel? Explain.

Delores’s Ratio Practice

To help her younger sister, Delores, prepare for her test on ratios, Hannah created a practice quiz. Review Delores’s answer to Hannah’s quiz, and determine which questions Delores answered correctly.

For each of the problems missed by Delores, explain what led to her incorrect answer.

The Sw...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Lesson Starters, the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, and This Book
• What Is a Lesson Starter, and How Can It Improve Classroom Instruction and Behavior Management?
• Classroom Suggestions for Successful Lesson Starters
• Classroom Expectations for Lesson Starters
• The Common Core State Standards: Content Standards for Grades 6–8
• The Common Core State Standards: Mathematical Practice Standards for Grades K–12
• Unit 1. CCSS-M Domain RP: Ratios & Proportional Relationships
• Unit 2. CCSS-M Domain NS: The Number System
• Unit 3. CCSS-M Domain EE: Expressions & Equations
• Unit 4. CCSS-M Domain G: Geometry
• Unit 5. CCSS-M Domain SP: Statistics & Probability
• Unit 6. Lesson Starters to Use with Multiple Math Topics
• Complete List of Lesson Starters
• Selected Answers
• Index