Wonder

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Cade’s Sneaker Word Problems

So here they are, samples of the sneaker word problems from Cade’s station.

***Elizabeth and Annabella:  Cade has a pair of sneakers that is worth $400, and my pair cost about $20.  How much are both pairs altogether?

***Noah:  If Cade has 35 pairs of sneakers that cost an average of $100 each, what is the total estimated cost of his collection?

***Joshua:  The most expensive shoe Cade has ever seen in person is worth $30,000.  The most expensive shoes in the world, the solid gold Air Jordans, cost $2,000,000.  How much more are the golden shoes?

***Jonah and Adelle:  If you buy two pairs of the golden Air Jordans, what would the price be?

***Charlotte:  If Cade gets ten pairs of sneakers every month for his collection, how many pairs would he have in twelve months?

***David:  If Cade got ten pairs of the $400 Yeezy sneakers, how much would it cost?

If you create a sneaker word problem in the comments, we will solve it!

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Sneaker Wonder

In my own professional reading this summer, The Curious Classroom absolutely inspired me as I investigated the topic of student-driven inquiry.  The author, Smokey Daniels, discusses how to connect the wonders all around us with the things we need to learn.  Passionate inquiry begins with our own wondering.

So in walks Cade as our TA, presenting us with a perfect example.  I had never really thought much about sneakers.  They make feet happy, but other than that I hadn’t really pondered them much.  Well, who knew!  In connecting with Cade’s obsession with sneakers, we found out that sneakers are FASCINATING.  We are overflowing with sneaker ideas.

At our Friday math stations, Cade led “Cade’s Sneaker Word Problems.”  The students researched sneaker facts with him and filled the board with their wild findings.  We discovered that in 1990, Nike lost a shipment of 80,000 sneakers at sea, and they have been traveling the ocean currents at an average of about seven miles a day ever since.  Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars are the world’s best selling sneaker ever, now up to a total of about 600 million pairs.  We located the most expensive sneakers, $2 million solid gold Air Jordans, and Michael Jordan’s game-worn Converse Fastbreak sneakers sold for $190,373.  And there’s so much more . . . .

To inspire us, Cade wore the crown of his collection that day, his Adidas Yeezy 350 v2 Boost cream white sneakers.  Guess how much they are worth in the comments, and we’ll tell you in a later post.

What are you curious about?  Share the wonder with us this year!

 

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Animal Biodiversity Bonus

Our Mystery Science today was a study of biodiversity using the frogs of North America.  In the activity, students learn to identify frogs by their unique calls and investigate which of two locations has a greater variety of frogs using only sound.  We are used to making observations using our eyes, so doing hearing observations was very intriguing.

The students were wondering if they could find out more about our local frogs so they could do this activity outside in the spring.  Family Spring Celebration idea maybe?

As an extension of the lesson, we used this nature soundmap to listen to sounds around the world, from whales and howler monkeys to icebergs clacking each other and desert winds.  Try it!  We think you’ll be entranced too.

Very cool Nature Soundmap!