Thanksgiving

What better subject for the week following Thanksgiving than LEFTOVERS? This puzzle isn't very hard if you're good at keeping track of information.


The Dunn family had several guests for Thanksgiving weekend. The menu for Thanksgiving dinner included turkey and candied yams (of course!) as well as orange rolls and pie. There was a lot of leftover food (except for the yams -- they disappeared quickly), making for good snacking all weekend. Each of the pies had been cut into six pieces, giving a total number of pie slices equal to the number of orange rolls initially baked by Mrs. Dunn. At Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday everyone ate two orange rolls and one slice of pie each. That night four of the guests left for home, but the next day everyone remaining at the house ate another orange roll and three more slices of pie each. As of Friday night, Mr. Dunn noted that there were still 7 orange rolls and two-thirds of a pie remaining.

Turkey sandwiches were also very popular fare that weekend. On Friday everyone in the house ate an equal number of turkey sandwiches. Two more guests left for home on Friday night. Then on Saturday everyone remaining at the house ate an equal number of turkey sandwiches, though they ate one fewer sandwich per person than they had eaten on Friday. Mr. Dunn calculated that there were eleven more sandwiches eaten on Friday than were eaten on Saturday.

Now, sort through all of that and tell me: how many turkey sandwiches were eaten at the Dunn house on Friday?

October 2nd, 2009

Seesaw

The Yucaipa Middle School football team had just finished a weight training workout. Before leaving, each of the players stepped up on the scale. Marvin weighed in at 250 lbs., Ali was 100 lbs., Rasheed was 150 lbs., and Pedro was 125 lbs.  Leaving practice, these four friends took a shortcut through the neighboring elementary school playground. Marvin spotted a seesaw, sat on one end, and challenged his teammates:

 Who can sit on the other side of the seesaw to make it balance?

In turn, Ali, Rasheed, and Pedro each tried sitting on the seesaw across from Marvin -- and each succeeded.

Then Ali sat by himself on one end and returned the challenge -- and again each succeeded.  How did they do it?

Explain in words how to solve this kind of problem in general -- no matter what the weights and distances. All the information you need to solve the problem is given. You may have to read the problem a couple of times and think about the seesaw.

In your explanation, be sure to include the following:

1.  The two distances from the fulcrum and the weight of the teammate that balanced the seesaw with Marvin on one end.

2.  Two more combinations that successfully balanced with Ali.

3.  A formula for the general case that you described in your process.

4.  Use complete sentences to explain complete thoughts and rich details about the process.

Good Luck Ms. L.

P.S. Happy Birthday Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Friday September 25th

Today you will do two things.

Practice equations.
Post on the Wiki
 
Below I have given you five links.  Please play at least two rounds of each link.  Please play them in order.  You must play the highest level available before going on to the next site.  You may play lower levels but you must play the highest.  (You may play these in partners.)

Site 1

Site 2

Site 3

Site 4

Site 5

I don't know if these will work on our school computers, but they are fun so give them a try.

1

2

3

After you are done you will hunt the internet for math games we can play on Fridays.   You will post it to the class wiki.  I have set up a game page.  Be sure to put it under the appropriate age band and content standard.  Also, add a description so people will know if they want to play the game.

Have fun.
Ms. L.

He Shoots! He Scores!

When Bo got home from his basketball game last night, looking pretty pleased with himself, his roommates asked him how it went. He said that he had 10 rebounds, 2 blocks, 3 assists, and equaled or bettered his season high in points. Naturally they wanted to know exactly how many points he scored. Since he never likes to give them a straight answer, he told them the following:


• I didn't shoot any free throws.

• The number of 2-point baskets I made is more than twice the number of 3-point baskets I made.

• The number of 2-pointers I made is less than or equal to 8.

• My previous season high was 18 points.

Now the roommates had to do some thinking! Using t to represent the number of 3-pointers he made, g to represent the number of 2-pointers, and f to represent the number of free throws, write equations or inequalities to represent all of the information given above. You should have four statements.

1. Decide which of the four graphs below best represents the information given in the problem. Explain your choice carefully!

2. What are all of the possible point totals for Bo?

If you would like to see the image more clearly click on the graph you want to see.

Anh's Code

Each group in Anh's math class is making up a secret math code, where unfamiliar symbols stand for five different mathematical operations. Anh's group is going to challenge Aurora's group to crack the code used in the following equations:

Aurora's group's results will be verified by asking them to evaluate this expression:

What should they get?  

Name the operation for each symbol.  Think about this carefully.

Carefully and concisely, write your explanation of how you figured it out, use these capital letters to substitute for the symbols:

• the heart is H
• the star is S
• the raindrop is R
• the lightening bolt is L
• the bull's-eye is B

This weeks solution:

There was really only one way I saw that you approached Anh's Code and that was to start by trying to figure out which operation stood for which figure. Once you figured out that the fifth operation was "exponentiation" then you could find the answer to the expression. The difficult part was in explaining your thinking regarding how you found the operation! Most of you stated you used trial and error.  Many of you put equations as proof of your solution however this did not explain how you found the matching operation to the given symbols.



The code is:
(The symbols used are the conventional symbols used on a computer to express the operation indicated.)

Heart = (+) or addition
Raindrop = (-) or subtraction
Bulls Eye = (*) or multiplication
Star = (/) or division
Lightning Bolt = (^) or exponents


After solving the final equation, using order of operation, your solution should have been 13.
Ms. L.