Lesson 9

The purpose of this What Do You Know About is to invite students to share what they know about the school, which prepares students to ask and answer mathematical questions about the school community in later activities.

• “What do you know about our school?”
• 1 minute: quiet think time

• Record responses.

• “We know a lot of things about our school. In the next activities, we will get to think about things that we don’t know about our school yet and how we could work together and use math to figure these things out.”

The purpose of this activity is for students to develop mathematical questions about their school community. This walk could also take place on the playground or in the local community.

• Give each student a clipboard with a blank piece of paper.
• “We’re going to take another walk around the school. Your job is to think of math questions that you would like to answer about our school. Use your recording sheet to help you remember what questions you have.”

• 15 minutes: whole-class school walk

• Invite students to share their questions.
• Record student questions on an anchor chart. Keep the chart display during the next activity.

The purpose of this activity is for students to answer mathematical questions about their school community (MP4). Students work with a partner to choose a question to answer. Students work together to develop a plan for how they will answer the question and what, if any, math tools they will need. Then students have time to work together to answer the question. Students will need an opportunity to go out into the school to answer many of the questions. If necessary, this activity can be adjusted to be completed in one room or one area of the school. If time allows, students can pick multiple questions to answer.

• Students need access to all math tools that they have used throughout the year.

• Groups of 2
• Give students access to all math tools.
• Reread the questions from the previous activity.
• “Choose 1 question that you want to answer with your partner. Write the question at the top of your page.”
• 1 minute: partner discussion
• 2 minutes: independent work time
• “What will you need to do to answer the question? What tools do you need?”
• 3 minutes: partner discussion

• “Work with your partner to answer your question. Show your thinking using drawings, numbers, or words.”
• 10 minutes: partner work time

• “Were there any unexpected challenges that you faced when trying to answer the question you chose?”
• “Were there any questions that you could not answer? Why not? What information or tool would help you answer that question?”