Trashketball and Monday Morning Quarterbacks!

Today we played a quick game to help students understand the connections between fractions, decimals, and percents.  The students all know how to convert with ease between them.  Now we are focusing on real-world examples.

One thing I thought of on the way to school to make it interesting was to take five shots at a trash can and record your ratio (fraction) after each shot.  The students stand about five feet away from the can and take shots with recycled paper.  They record each students' scores as well.

Here were my scores:  1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5
I made my first shot, then missed the next four.

So what were the decimals and percents.
After the first shot, 1.0 or 100%, Then 50%, Then 33.3%, Then 25%, Then 20%.

The students then followed to complete this task.  (Most fared better than me.)

At the end of the lesson, one of the students said we should call this "Trashketball".
A quick google search found this to be a game developed by math teachers already for all kinds of math activities.  How cool.  I will be sure to  try some of their suggestions.

On Monday we will branch off into looking at the group as a whole, simplifying the fractions, comparing fractions within and between groups, adding and subtracting fractions.

Thanks to those of you who shared ideas. A former colleague sent along a great football idea.  Can't wait to try this Mrs. M.