Project budget math II
Compare vendor options and justify a spend.
Fraction & Decimal Operations · Lab day · 70 minutes
Students measure, build, collect, or graph. The mathematics is not new — the situation is. A long, protected work block with the teacher circulating and asking rather than answering. A project lab feeds the shared product all four subjects are working toward: build and test the levee, analyze the water flow, present the redesign. A course lab lives inside one subject only: a science investigation, a math modeling task, a social studies simulation, an ELA workshop with evidence and revision. Both are real work; only the project lab is coordinated across subjects.
Five spiral problems from earlier standards. Workbook page, pencil, no calculator. Students self-check against the projected key.
The situation, the constraint, and what counts as a finished result. Materials distributed by team.
Teams investigate. Teacher does two coaching laps: lap one checks that every team measured before building, lap two watches who is doing the recording.
Silent. Every student writes their own calculation and one-paragraph explanation, even though the work was done in a team.
One problem on the day's standard. Collected at the door and sorted into got it / almost / not yet before the next period.
- · Set the task and the constraint in under ten minutes, then get out of the way. Students already have the mathematics for "compare vendor options and justify a spend".
- · Coaching lap one: confirm every team measured before they built or computed. Flag teams skipping the measurement.
- · Coaching lap two: watch who is holding the recording device. Rotate the role if the same student had it last lab.
- · Protect the individual write-up. The team did the work together; the evidence is written alone and silently.
Students work in teams to investigate, measure, and record, then break silently to write their own calculation and explanation. The team result is shared; the write-up is theirs alone.
Exit ticket: One sentence: what did your measurement tell you that an estimate would not have?
Homework: Finish the write-up if it is not done. Nothing new.
Both. Paper for the calculation and write-up; Chromebook or tablet for the evidence photo and any graphing.
The lab recording sheet, one per student. Print this the day before.
Open the print set →Yes — this is an evidence day. Yes — this is an evidence day. The individual write-up and one photo go into the portfolio with the standard attached. See where it lands →