For a warmup assignment I asked my students if they would rather have a million dollars today or a magic penny that will double itself for 30 days. Students wrote down their answer and why, then we took a vote of who would choose each. (most chose a million muahahaha)
We then began the story One grain of Rice by Demi.
The story is about a girl that convinced an unfair Raja into giving her all the rice he had taken from a town by having the amount start with one and double for 30 days.
After we've read about a couple of days we start to guess how much she will end up with and see who's answer is the highest to put on the board.
We finish reading the story and students tend to be pretty shocked that the one grain of rice turned into millions and then billions total.
After the story we filled in this worksheet from Illuminations.
Most students needed a little help coming up with the equations on their own. We looked at and discussed the pattern between the total after so many days and the next day after that together as a class.
Over the next couple of days we graphed, wrote and solved some exponential problems and I found myself referring back to the story quite often.
I think my students enjoyed the break from math to enjoy a story and it was kinda fun for me to have story time as well. I believe this is my third year now introducing exponential equations this way.
No comments:
Post a Comment