This year, as in the year that Jesus died, Passover and Easter coincide. Many scholars believe that Jesus died either one day before or one day after the 14th day of the Hebrew calendar month of Nissan (which is the first day of Passover). To learn more about the Hebrew calendar, check out our Hanukkah post at YummyMath.
We have 9 more timely activities for your classes before their spring break.
Dyeing eggs with food coloring - Students use the chart on the back of a food dye package to compare the divergent recipes listed for coloring a cake mix, icing, and dyeing eggs. They look for and create equivalent ratios and practice using the terms "saturation", "shade", and "hue". 4.NF, 5.NF, 6.RP.A, 7.RP
Mom's matzo ball soup
- Tripling fractions, adjusting proportions, and maintaining the ratios to create one humongous matzo ball.
CCSS: 5.NF, 6.NS, 7.NS, 7.EE, MP7 , MP8
Giant Chocolate Bunnies - What can you deduce about the bunnies (pictured in this activity) from the descriptions given ... solid? hollow? cost per pound? cost per height? Anything else? 6.RP.A, 7.RP.A
Coconut and chocolate chip macaroons - Two activities:
- Halving, quartering, and three-fourthing recipe.
- Creating a general rule for doubling, halving, or whatever...ing the recipe.
CCSS: 5.NF, 6.NS, 7.NS, 7.EE, MP7 , MP8
Peeps - Students estimate the number of Peeps sold each Easter season. They consider reasonability by making guesses they think might be too high and too low. Students determine necessary info, problem solve and improve their original estimates. They conduct random samplings of their estimates and compare the mean of their estimates to the actual number of peeps sold each season. 7.SP.1, 7.SP.2, HS, MP1, MP2, MP3
Or more non-religious Spring activities
Holiday candy sales - Students translate a pie chart of information on candy sales to actual dollars spent for various holidays. They then ponder the incredible amount spent in America on candy. 6.RP.3 , 7.RP.3 7.EE.3
Python Tree - We let students see a tree leafing out with the use of a fractal and the start of appreciating recursion. We used the Python programming language and asked students to figure out what the program is saying to do ... without Python instructions. Pretty, fun, and important in our world today. 4.OA, 5.OA, 8.F, MP7, MP8, HSF.IF
Planning to plant seeds - It's time to get ready to plant my garden again. Here in Boston we have to start our seeds indoors to give them a head start before we can put plants outside. The seed packages tells me how many weeks early to plant seeds indoors and how long the seeds will take to sprout. That's a lot of counting backwards. This activity introduces students to the use of spreadsheets to count the time between planting indoors and planting outdoors. HSF.BF, HS.M, HSA.REI, HSA.CED,