This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to give fourth graders an overview of comparison of weights (metric units).
Join Maria and Boris the Astronaut in their journey. Learn about mass, weight, and gravity in space.
This activity can be conducted in the classroom. The students are given an opportunity to discover the basic concept of balance/counterbalance and how evenly distributed weight affects an object.
In this lesson, students discover the entire process that goes into designing a rocket for any customer. In prior lessons, students learned how rockets work, but now they learn what real-world decisions engineers have to make when designing and building a rocket. They learn about important factors such as supplies, ethics, deadlines and budgets. Also, students learn about the Engineering process, and recognize that the first design is almost never the final design. Re-Engineering is a critical step in creating a rocket.
This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about length comparisons using data tables (english units).
Students explore methods employing simple machines likely used in ancient pyramid building, as well as common modern-day material transportation. They learn about the wheel and axle as a means to transport materials from rock quarry to construction site. They also learn about different types and uses of a lever for purposes of transport. In an open-ended design activity, students choose from everyday materials to engineer a small-scale cart and lever system to convey pyramid-building materials.
A guide to support parents as they work with their students in comparison of length, weight, capacity, and numbers to 10.
Site from HyperPhysics dealing with the topic of mass and weight. In addition the site deals with weightlessness. The numerous links to other pages help the student see how ideas are interrelated.
Proportional Relationships
Type of Unit: Concept
Prior Knowledge
Students should be able to:
Understand what a rate and ratio are.
Make a ratio table.
Make a graph using values from a ratio table.
Lesson Flow
Students start the unit by predicting what will happen in certain situations. They intuitively discover they can predict the situations that are proportional and might have a hard time predicting the ones that are not. In Lessons 2–4, students use the same three situations to explore proportional relationships. Two of the relationships are proportional and one is not. They look at these situations in tables, equations, and graphs. After Lesson 4, students realize a proportional relationship is represented on a graph as a straight line that passes through the origin. In Lesson 5, they look at straight lines that do not represent a proportional relationship. Lesson 6 focuses on the idea of how a proportion that they solved in sixth grade relates to a proportional relationship. They follow that by looking at rates expressed as fractions, finding the unit rate (the constant of proportionality), and then using the constant of proportionality to solve a problem. In Lesson 8, students fine-tune their definition of proportional relationship by looking at situations and determining if they represent proportional relationships and justifying their reasoning. They then apply what they have learned to a situation about flags and stars and extend that thinking to comparing two prices—examining the equations and the graphs. The Putting It Together lesson has them solve two problems and then critique other student work.
Gallery 1 provides students with additional proportional relationship problems.
The second part of the unit works with percents. First, percents are tied to proportional relationships, and then students examine percent situations as formulas, graphs, and tables. They then move to a new context—salary increase—and see the similarities with sales taxes. Next, students explore percent decrease, and then they analyze inaccurate statements involving percents, explaining why the statements are incorrect. Students end this sequence of lessons with a formative assessment that focuses on percent increase and percent decrease and ties it to decimals.
Students have ample opportunities to check, deepen, and apply their understanding of proportional relationships, including percents, with the selection of problems in Gallery 2.
Students are asked whether they can determine the number of books in a stack by measuring the height of the stack, or the number of marbles in a collection of marbles by weighing the collection.Students are asked to identify for which situations they can determine the number of books in a stack of books by measuring the height of the stack or the number of marbles in a collection of marbles by weighing the collection.Key ConceptsAs students examine different numerical relationships, they come to understand that they can find the number of books or the number of marbles in situations in which the books are all the same thickness and the marbles are all the same weight. This “constant” is equal to the value BA for a ratio A : B; students begin to develop an intuitive understanding of proportional relationships.Goals and Learning ObjectivesExplore numerical relationshipsSWD: Some students with disabilities will benefit from a preview of the goals in each lesson. Have students highlight the critical features or concepts to help them pay close attention to salient information.
In this interactive lesson, learn what the "physical properties" of matter are and how can they be measured and observed.
Use this interactive calorie calculator to determine what your optimal daily caloric intake is according to your activity level and body type.
Students revisit Bernoulli's Principle (Lesson 1 of the Airplanes unit) and learn how engineers use this principle to design airplane wings. Airplane wings create lift by changing the pressure of the air around it. This is the first of four lessons exploring the four key forces in flight: lift, weight, thrust and drag.
The purpose of this lesson is to help students understand the relationship between the mass and the weight of an object. Students will study the properties of common materials and why airplanes use specific materials.
This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about introduction to metric measures: how big is a meter?.
This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about adding lengths in meters.
This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to give fourth graders an overview of conversion of capacity units (metric units).
This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about multiplication of lengths (metric units).
This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about subtracting lengths in meters.