Sunshine State Standard

MA.A.1.2.3

Materials

Plastic money (pennnies, dimes, nickels, quarters, half-dollars) Large cube (die with numbers 1-6 on it)

What to do

Students take turns rolling the die and taking the amount of money out of the money box that correlates to the number shown on the die. As play comes back to the student they take additional money being sure to trade in smaller coins for larger coins so that they have the least amount of coins in front of them.

Additional Information

As an extension, we compare (as a group) which color represented the largest fraction of each student's group. I keep a tally chart for each color on the board. I then convert that tally chart into a bar graph on the board. We discuss which color(s) was the most common. I ask a probability question: "If you reached your hand into a bag of M&M's without looking, which color would you most likely pull out?" From my experiences, I've found that blue is the least common color and the brown the most common color. I then explain to the students that certain factors play a role in selecting the amounts of the colors during production, i.e. how the different dyes used to color the M&M's may have different costs and one may cost more than another, one may be easier to mix than another, etc. Correlated to benchmarks: MA.E.1.1.1, MA.E.2.1.1, MA.E.2.2.2

Submitted by

Tammy Hanlon

Pasco County County
, Florida
thanlon@grouper.pasco.k12.fl.us