Fractions on the Farm

Summer brings calving season, which makes a lot more work for the boys and I.  It is my favorite time.  I remember when I was growing up my mom and I getting  ready to go do chores and we would walk over to the barn to fee all of the calves, so it is a bit of a tradition when I'm doing this with my boys.

We feed our calves fresh milk, we do not use milk replacer.  When it comes time to for feeding we need to wait until Scott has milked a cow with the bucket milker.  After receiving the milk in a pail we then have to divide it among smaller pails, or bottles. HHMMMM.....fractions!!! So, I casually ask Evan how we will know each calf is getting the same amount.  He said,"well just fill it up to the same spot, mom." So I questioned a bit more, "So, say 1/3 of the bucket?"  Then there was the look, "huh"?  So I began to talk with him about how if there are 3 1/3rds  that makes a whole.  We got a little deeper into fractions by trying to figure out how we could divide the whole bucket into four smaller buckets, and he got it.  He said, "Well wouldn't that be 1/4?"  YES!!!!  Then I had to do my pitch about how math is everywhere in your daily life.

It hurts when people say, "Oh, your husband is a farmer....." What people do not realize is how incredibly smart farmers are!  There is so much math on a farm.  From the size of tools to being able to figure out if tonight's milking is going to fit in the bulk tank.  Education is around my boys all of the time and I wouldn't trade it for the world!

To have your children practice fractions click here.  This is a great site for all ages.

More figuring on the farm!

Scott and I drove down to Mayer, MN yesterday to bring 17 of our steers to another farm.  So, today we had to ween some other calves off of milk.  We had to take 7 steers/heifers from the machine shed and put them in pen 1, then take 4 out of huts, and 4 out of the pen in the barn to put in the machine shed pen.  WHEW! It is a lot faster to type that then to actually do it.  When you want them to move, they don't!

So, the question arose from the boys, how big is pen 1 and 2?  HMM....  Well, I just so happen to know how to figure that out!  We need to find the area, and to do that we need to multiply the length by the width.  It amazes me how much math we do in our daily lives.

Well, to get on with our math problem of the day,  we needed to figure out the area of each pen.  To figure that out we needed to measure.  This layout that I found is pretty close to ours.
 

Instead of taking out the tape measure we just multiplied 2 by 12, we have two twelve foot gates, and 3 by 12 for the other direction.  To find the area of pen 1 we need to multiply 24 x 36, which equals 864 square feet.  We did the same thing for pen 2.  Pen 2 is bigger. 7 gates long by 4 gates wide.  I asked Evan what we had to do first.  "multiply by 12!" 
Right on man!!  So now for pen 2 we have 7x12 and 4x12.  We take 84x48 to get 4032 square feet.  To find the total of both pens we just need to add the two totals together and we 4896.  So!  That is how we figure out how big our pens are.
I did some math standards research and it looks like at about grade four MN students start to learn about area of shapes.  Evan will be going into grade four, so hopefully this summer will be a good prep for him!

Here is a great catchy video that could be used in the classroom, I think students would get a kick out of it!

What the Hay!!!

Well, this time of year brings, well.....a lot of hay!  We round bale and we also square bale.  I usually do the square baling and my husband does the round baling.  There was once talk of him teaching me how to round bale, but I was once told by a very wise elderly woman not to learn how to do everything, or I will be doing everything!!  So, I turned on my selective hearing at that time!  The boys and my husband and a lot of neighborhood kids get the pleasure of unloading the square bales into the hay barn.  Oh the joys of summer!  As the days go on, we need to haul the round bales off of the field.  As the boys and I drive around the field as Scott loads the trailer, I told the boys, "Just think how long this would take us if these were all square bales and we had to pick them up by hand??"  Then I thought, "Teaching moment!!!"
 
So, now we need to figure out how many square bales are in a round bale, Oh boy!!  The boys wanted to do some estimation on the weights of the bales. Evan guessed 600 lbs for the round bales and 20 lbs for the square bales.  Brooks guessed 200 lbs for the rounds and 50 lbs for the squares.  I had no idea!!  So, Scott clued us in.  The round bales vary between 800 lbs-850 lbs and the squares between 40lbs-45 lbs.

Now, for the math part.  To find out how many square bales would be equal to one round bale, we had to do a little figuring.  We decided to go with the weights 40 and 800.  To figure this equation out we took 800 and divided by 40, which gave us 20.  The answer to the question is there are approximately 20 square bales to each round bale.  Now, to take it one step further, there were 269 round bales on the field, how many square bales would that be??  This was a chance where lattice multiplication could came in.  We took 269 multiplied it by 20 and came up with 5380!!  That also made us appreciate our round baler!!!

We are having a party!!!

Oh, the joys of planning a birthday party.  There is a reason that I had my boys 2 1/2 years apart, a party every 6 months!!  Ha! Just kidding, it just conveniently worked out that way.  Well, along with parties comes a lot food and treats.  To have your children help out planning, give them the math.  They are never going to use it again anyways, right?!
So, we have 20 adults and 8 kids.  We need to figure out how many hot dogs, hamburgers, buns, bags of chips, jars of pickles, boxes of jello, containers of whipped cream, drinks, size of cake, plates, napkins, forks, spoons, cups.........oh the list can go on.  This is what I hear,  "Mom, why can't you just go buy some stuff and call it good?"  OH!! I will tell you my dear.  "Why would I buy 14 bags of buns, when I need only 6?  So this is what you are going to do my love, you are going to figure how much we need?" "But, MAAAWWMMM!"  I think that is what most children would say, but not mine.  He would do math all day everyday.  He gets jealous that I have math homework and he doesn't!!
To incorporate math into real life as you see is quite easy.  At first I think that we could just do some estimation in regards to most of the items. Some of the adults will have a hot dog and a hamburger, most of the kids will either have one or the other.  (A nice chart would come in handy.)  We are a natural casing hot dog family, so knowing that they come in packages of 10, (we are not going to Sam's) how many packages do you think we should get?  For easy figuring we can round up to 30 guests.  30/10 is 3.  Three packages of hot dogs should be good.  Some of the items are not as easy to figure out, such as the chips.  We can still use estimation though.  We know by having thirty guests that we do not need thirty bags of chips, but four would suffice.  To get into depth a little deeper, and depending on the age, figuring out the serving size on the chip bags and multiplying that number by the amount of guests would get you even closer.  This system will continue on for all food and paper supplies.

Estimation and rounding in a party situation is a good plan, because you really will not know what people will want. 
For this to be used in my future classroom I will use this technique for any classroom parties.  We can use it for our fall party, if we have 24 students we can use estimation to figure out snacks.
Below is a cute, quick video that could be used in a classroom for lower elementary grades.

Estimation in the real world

When it comes to estimation, you need to be careful when close enough is good enough.  When balancing a checkbook you need to be spot on.  When estimating what your total for your grocery bill is, that however can be close enough.  Rounding to the nearest dollar should suffice.  I always feel better rounding up than rounding down.
For an example, I have $50 to spend on grocery's for the week.  I go down my list and put the price, estimated to the nearest dollar.
Bread 2.00
Lunchmeat 4.00/lb
Noodles 1.00
Lettuce 2.00
etc, etc....  I add up the total and then minus my coupons.  Coupons are a must these days!!
This is a wonderful real-life lesson for your children as well.  They can have their own notebook and do the estimating and see how close they are at the end.

Estimation can be done in a variety of situations.  It is a great help when time is of the essence and an exact is not needed. Estimation can be done, with time such as how long will it take to grocery shop?  It can also be done with size, is it worth getting the economy pack of hot dogs?  Will they all get eaten?



Adapting this to your classroom can be very easy.  For younger grades you can have students bring in empty food containers and set up a grocery store.  This activity was done by the preschool teacher that I worked with two years ago, the students loved it.  There also is a pretend grocery store at the Minnesota Children's museum and that area was packed every time we visited.  Everything can be priced and have play money with a cash register, I guarantee they will love it.


For older students they could bring in ads from the local grocery stores and with a budget amount do their shopping.

  More or LessPlace eight quarters in a row. Replace every other coin with a dime. Replace every third coin with a nickel. Finally, replace every fourth coin with a penny. What is the value of the eight coins now? How much more or less money do you have than when you started? Were any coins not replaced? Why or why not?

From Math by the Month, May 2001 TCM. - See more at: http://www.nctm.org/resources/archive.aspx?id=3604&journalid=4#sthash.9ZhTjIwK.dpuf

  More or LessPlace eight quarters in a row. Replace every other coin with a dime. Replace every third coin with a nickel. Finally, replace every fourth coin with a penny. What is the value of the eight coins now? How much more or less money do you have than when you started? Were any coins not replaced? Why or why not?

From Math by the Month, May 2001 TCM. - See more at: http://www.nctm.org/resources/archive.aspx?id=3604&journalid=4#sthash.9ZhTjIwK.dpuf

This website is a great place to start for math at the grocery store.  Take a look around.


 

Will I ever really use this???

When are we ever really going to use this?????

This is one of my biggest pet peeves.  Math is everywhere all of the time!! 

So, yes my answer is yes.  You will use this, whether you know it or not!


 


I gave my son three dollars to go buy water at the Renaissance Festival last year.  He came back with $.50 and a bottle of water.  My reaction?  “Holy $2.00 for a bottle of water, crazy!”  He just looked at me and said, “No, mom it was $1.50”  Well, come to find out Evan knew that she owed him another dollar but didn’t have enough courage to ask for it.  Of course being the outspoken person I am we went back to the stand and asked for our dollar.  She looked a little sheepish knowing that she was trying to take advantage of an 8 year old.  This brings me to my point of knowing math and being able to know how much money that you get back when making a purchase.

When my sons and I go grocery shopping we figure out the best deals.  We compare price and size.  I make it a game and they think of it as a challenge.  Children need to know how to add the cost of items and subtract from the budget amount.  This is a life long skill that everyone should know.  They also need to know when there is something special that they want to buy, how much money they need and what chores they have to do to get it.

 According to the Minnesota State Standards Strand 3 Geometry and Measurement, the standard 3.3.3.3 states, "Use time, money, temperature to solve real-world mathematical problems." The benchmark states, "Make change up to one dollar in several different ways, including with a few coins as possible."

http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/EdExc/StanCurri/K-12AcademicStandards/

I found a few math games online that deal with money that will be good practice for your child.