My First 3 Act Math Tasks
The other day I had one of the best days I’ve had in a long time out in the schools. After watching Dan Meyer’s Webinar about the 3 Act Math Tasks (if you don’t know what 3 Act Math is, stop reading and watch the webinar…seriously…it is worth the 30 minutes) and then reading everything I could on Dan’s blog as well as many others, I created two of my own 3 Act Math Tasks. I tested them out yesterday plus I also used Graham Fletcher’s Lil’ Sister task. Here is the breakdown of what I did.
5th Grade 3 Act Math Task: Cheese Balls
(This was my favorite!!! I did this with 5th/6th combo class but would love to try it with 4th grade. I thought of this idea as I was making these lovely Cheese Ball Carrots for my son’s Kindergarten class and thought “How many Cheese Balls is this going to take? Will I have enough in this container to make all the carrots I need?” So I thought I’d pose the picture to students and see if they came up with similar questions.)
cheese balls act I
What is the first question that comes to mind?
Gotta say I LOVE the 3 Act Handout…it really helped the kids organize their thoughts throughout the task. After I listed all the questions kids had up on the board I told them that we would try to answer all their questions throughout the task, but for right now I wanted them to answer this question:
How many cheese balls did it take to fill up all these carrots?
cheese balls act II
After having them fill out the section in the 3 Act Math Handout about What Information Do You Need? and having them estimate how many cheese balls they thought it took, I showed them these two pictures and let them go about solving the problem:
cheese balls act III
After they all had taken the 24 bags x 26 in each bag, every kid in that room was so confident and proud that they had gotten the answer of 624, however…
FYI, when I made these carrots I just grabbed two handfuls and placed them into the bag…I did not count them. The kids quickly came up with the idea that I had not placed the same amount into each bag, so I gave them some time to adjust their answer and then gave them the big reveal picture (which I had printed off for them) and let them figure out how many Cheese Balls I used:
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1st Grade 3 Act Math Task: Lil’ Sis
(Graham has this posted as Kindergarten on his site, but it was difficult even for a couple of the 1st graders…if we would have had more time I would have let the kids create the stacks of unifix cubes for the height of each girl so they would have the concrete piece to help them out, not just trying to use the pictures. I had to go off to another lesson but the 1st grade teacher and I talked about her extending the activity by creating Big Sister’s height in cubes and then each kid creating their height in cubes and comparing their height to Big Sis.)
Here is the picture from Act I…click on it to visit’s Graham site for the whole task, better to see it straight from him than me retell it.
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4th Grade 3 Act Math Task: Fraction Fun
(the picture for this task came from a video off The Teaching Channel. The lesson in the video is a 5th/6th combo class but the standards listed with the video are 3rd grade Common Core standards…so I guess it could be used anywhere in that range. Personally, I used this picture with a 3rd/4th combo class.)
fraction fun act I
This task went pretty good with the kids, but I am almost certain I shouldn’t call it a 3 Act Math Task…mainly because I couldn’t decide what to do for Act II and III…any ideas? I did pose the picture to the kids to see what questions they came up with and the kids decided what information/resources they needed (act II) and I had a couple groups of students come up and reveal (act III) how they covered the shape with other shapes….but not sure that makes it a 3 act task???? I am just starting with this journey, so any advice is greatly apprecieated.
About The Author
“The answer is NOT 624.”
Lovely move there. Thanks for sharing.
Hey Christina,
I love that you’re diving head first into K-5 world of 3-Acts and sharing! I’m still learning and growing everyday so I can only offer my understanding.
When you look at the picture of pattern blocks, are there any questions that come to mind that are not explicitly math? Most questions might be “how many triangles would it take to make the whole shape?” or “what fraction of the shape is yellow?”. Unfortunately I don’t think students think this way and they have an extremely difficult time finding the math. Getting students to ask good questions is like pulling teeth at first because up to this point, the teacher has had all of the questions and the student’s job is to answer them.
What I try to do is to chose an image or video that is going to develop curiosity up front (maybe ask a couple of colleagues or my kids at home as a test). The cheese ball task makes me want to know how many cheese balls there are…and that’s when you now you have an audience. I think the pattern blocks will work but putting them into an arrangement that fosters a “good” question will be key. I’m going to play with the idea and I’ll share if something slaps me in the head!
In terms of the Lil’ Sister Task you hit the nail on the head! I think the unifix cubes are a must in order for students to make sense of it. Building towers to represent each girl was a struggle in itself. When I did this task in one of our first grade classes a group refused to use unfix cubes… and they were they only one that got it wrong.
All the best and keep sharing and making us smarter!
Graham
Graham,
You are so right about the pattern blocks task. The fraction question did not even cross the mind of the 3rd/4th graders. I even showed the picture to my college students in Math for Elementary Teachers and no one had a question that was fraction related. I think that task just helped to remind me that too often we try to put in math concepts where they aren’t natural or real math tasks (the lovely Candy Bar problem about Johnny eating a large amount of candy bars and then we ask, what does Johnny have now…he has diabetes, no one cares how many candy bars he has left!!). I think that is the case about a lot of fraction tasks. We try to make it “real” for the kids like “You spend 1/4 of your money on iTunes downloads and 2/3 of your money on clothes. What fraction of your money did you spend?” But who really cares about the fraction they spent, they want to know how much money they just spent. The Cheese Ball task was natural, kids were curious about it and all the questions they came up with centered around the idea of how many cheese balls there are in the picture. The 3 Act idea is such a great way for me to get out of my traditional task box….but it is hard to think beyond what I am so used to tasks being like. I love the challenge and plan to keep at it.
Thanks for your insights, Graham!
–Christina
A colleague told me about Johnny a while back but I ‘d recently forgotten about him. I appreciate the reminder because that’s it… Who cares! The questions must come naturally!
I’m sure you’ve come across Dan’s http://www.101qs.com/. It’s a treasure trove of perplexing ideas. Be careful about diving into 3-Acts though because it can be addicting. I wake up thinking about tasks and voice to text the idea on my phone at 2:00am! My wife says I’m nuts!
Happy planning and keep sharing!
Ha! Too late, I already am addicted. It’s like having the Math Curse! I have spent a little time on 101qs, but that can suck you in as well. 🙂
Christina, What if you were turning the fraction fun design into a stained glass window. The green triangle piece will cost $1 to buy. What would be the total cost of the window?