2 thoughts on “Would You Rather…”

  1. Wow! I tried this problem with my 5th grade students today for our first experience with “Would You Rather?” math activity. I have a few things:
    1) First observation: Do you really mean that the cakes will be SHARED with 8 friends/6 friends? To me that reads 9/7 people will be sharing the cake. Regardless…my students were able to figure out the process of finding the area of the cakes and then dividing by the number of people. HOWEVER…..
    2) My students did not realize WHAT their numerical answer represented. For example, when asked to share, a student said that she would rather have Cake B because she would get 34 inches of cake. I asked how she could get 34 inches of cake when the cake is only 17 inches long! Helping them to realize what that number represented was learning point #1.
    3) As a challenge…once we established that the numerical answer represented 34 square inches of cake, I asked them to determine the dimensions of each piece of cake. They started with the easy answer of 17×2, and I questioned what kind of plates they were going to be using! They then needed to determine other possible options and which type of slice they would prefer!

    Thanks for sharing this type of activity!

    1. I love this, Lora. Thank you for sharing! First, the idea of “sharing” is up to the person, and that makes for some fun conversation. Am I sharing something that I get to enjoy? Or is it only for my friends? Hmmm…

      To your point about what their numerical answer represented, this is perfect! Adding in the context makes the task much more accessible when we’re putting numbers together, and I like how you brought it back to the cake.

      As you do more of this, please feel free to share reflections from your classroom. I truly appreciate it.

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