Students really struggle with perimeter and when I saw this Lego tape in the store, I knew I wanted to make a task with it.  The only problem was in what context?  We went to Legoland a few weekends ago and I saw that they had put Lego tape around their bulletin boards to store mini-figs and decorate.  I was sold!  This would be a perfect addition to my son’s building area.  I have added some extension activities at the end:)

This task best supports CCSS 3.MD.D.8.

Act 1:

What do you notice?  What do you wonder?

How much tape will it take to go around the entire board?

Give an estimate that is too low and one that is too high.

Act 2:

Act 3:

Extension:

This extension can incorporate conversion and address CCSS: 5.MD.A.1.

How much of Lego tape was left?  How much of each color?

2 inches green, 13 inches blue, 13 inches grey, 36 inches red.

I have to admit, Coin Dozer is my kryptonite!  I took my boys to Incredible Pizza the other night and happened upon this Wizard of Oz style coin dozer.  I couldn’t help but use the tokens we received as a math lesson because after all, we were doing the math as they fell!

This task may need a little set up by asking students about going to the arcade and telling them that this game gives you tokens and cards instead of tickets.  Then you can trade them in for tickets.  Each item is worth a different amount of tickets.

This task could support 5.OA.A.2 for order of operations or 5.NBT.B.5 or even 6.EE.B.6.

Act 1

What do you notice?  What do you wonder?

How many tickets is this worth?  Give an estimate that is too high and one that is too low.

Act 2

There were already 355 tickets on the card.

Act 3

So a total of 1035 tickets + 355 tickets = 1,390 tickets!