Saturday, June 22, 2019

Entry # 6 Ratios & Proportional Relationships: Understand the concept of a ratio (6.RP)

Personal Objective: 
This week I wanted to take a look at the basics of Ratios & Proportional Relationships: Understand the concept of a ratio at the 6th grade level. My goal in beginning to exploring this standard was to cover the ideas of comparison between two types of items. As always, I think providing fun visuals  helps to promote understanding when introducing a new concept.  


Common Core Standard:
6th Grade: 6.RP

Understand ratio concepts and use ratio reasoning to solve problems.

1. Understand the concept of a ratio and use ratio language to describe a ratio relationship between two quantities. For example, "The ratio of wings to beaks in the bird house at the zoo was 2:1, because for every 2 wings there was 1 beak." "For every vote candidate A received, candidate C received nearly three votes.


Resources/Tips:
Determining Ratios
A Ratio is a comparison between two items.
The Ratio of Potato Heads to Aliens is two Potato Heads compared to three Aliens.
(Toy Story 4 came out this week so my kids enthusiasm must be influencing me.)
We can write this in any of the three ways below:
2 to 3
2 : 3
2/3

This video does a great job explains the basic idea of ratios.


Activities/Worksheets: 
Building ratio questions around simple recipe proportions makes the idea relatable.
What is the ratio of sugar to water in the lemonade recipe below?

Answer:
1 to 6
1 : 6
1/6


Worksheet for students to explore their understanding of ratios.

Reflection: While exploring the concept of ratios this week, I wanted to not only provide explanation on what ratios were but to also offer some real life application. The idea of recipes was one of the first things that came to mind. A firm understanding of ratios would help if you had to double a recipe. Keeping in mind that the ratios would need to stay the same as the recipe was multiplied is a good way of crosschecking for accuracy. Upon thinking on it, I found it interesting how often I calculate ratios in my head without thinking of them as ratios, for example when I brew my morning coffee.

The Ratio of tablespoons to oz. is one tablespoon compared to six oz.
1 to 6
1 : 6
1/6

3 comments:

  1. Scott,

    I enjoyed your real life applications to something that may seem so abstract to some students. I especially like that you used Toy Story characters. Using something that is current with our students will most likely engage them even more. I also like how you pointed out that ratios are constantly found in recipes and in products that we use everyday. That could be a fun activity to do with the students in which they have to go home and find ratios around their houses. Thanks for making this connection!

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  2. Hi Scott. This was a really great post. So much of math has real practical applications. The sooner children learn this the more successful they will be.
    When I started to read your post I was thinking how little I know about ratios.
    After reading I realized I know more than I think I do! Thanks! = )

    - Amanda

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  3. Hey Scott! I clicked on your post because my initial thought was that I needed a refresher on this concept myself. Your post was so helpful that I was surprised by how much I already knew! I really love the real life applications you chose and the Toy Story example. Not only do you have something students will likely engage in, but also examples of everyday recipes. It might be fun to take these recipes to the next level and make something in the classroom for the students to enjoy (ie lemonade). This might also be an opportunity to connect topics together: ratios and financial literacy. Awesome post, Scott! Will definitely reference you ideas for my future classroom.

    Meah

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