Homework for Monday, February 9

 Assignment: The Riding Stable

Due: Tuesday, February 10

Welcome back to another week of ratios, rates, and proportions! Today's homework continues on this path with the big steps coming in knowing a) how to organize your work in order to b) set up and solve equations. This skill of tearing apart a problem and figuring out what to do to solve it is huge for the rest of their math careers, regardless of how long or short that may be. ;-)

What I am doing is teaching them a way to first organize their work. When you do not know what to do, can you set up something that cues you in?

For example: we know that 2/4 = 1/2, which most likely means 50% percentage and 0.5 as a decimal. But how did we get there so we can also solve it for other problems? Proportional problem solving is the key, and the beauty of it is that it doesn't matter whether it's a fraction/ratio (part-to-whole), or a part-to-part ratio; it works with either!

So what can you do?

In their notes, they should have part/whole = part/whole (ditto for part/part). If they do not, please have them write it in there immediately! Then we just replace the values. I have this nicely laid out in the resources category of their Google Classroom, and the best thing you can do is use those examples to emphasize this as an organizational tool. Have them log in to our Google Classroom and open it up!

Make sure they USE LABELS for everything and line them up across from their like label. 

Example: Lindsay's horse eats 4 apples every 2 days. (4a/2d) How many apples will her horse eat in 5 days? (?a/5d).  So 4a/2d = ?a/5d. Multiply on the diagonal (4a x 5d) and divide straight. 20 by 2 or 10 apples. This should be equivalent as in 4a/2d = 10a/5d.

*as the brilliant mathematician that you are, you will recognize where the percent equation comes in, you will remember that sometimes you do the same labels on each side (like 5 cookies/15 cookies = 1 bag/? bags) and so on. So I repeat, this is an organizational tool until they are ready to make those shortcuts or adjustments. Once they arrange it consistently, they will start to make it their own, so avoid teaching them a shortcut that, right now, gives them one more thing to consider. Trust me.