Updated October 2014
Matific: 6th Grade Games
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Matific: 6th Grade Games

Challenging inquiry-based activities improve conceptual understanding

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Grades
5–7
Subjects & Skills
Math, Critical Thinking
Price:  Free, Free to try, Paid
Platforms:  Website
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5 images
It's easy to search for activities by Common Core standard.
Half-Baked combines a ratio table and graph to solve problems.
Statistics Wizard helps organize data and solve problems.
It's easy to preview activities and assign them to students.
There are a variety of inquiry-based activities to help kids' strengthen their proportional reasoning.

How Can I Teach with This Tool?

Matific's 6th Grade offerings include 14 inquiry-based activities that cover a good number of Common Core standards for the grade. It's important to know that these activities don't include much concrete instruction -- students are encouraged to explore, using their inquiry skills and tenacity to figure things out. This can help some students build understanding, but it could frustrate others, so plan your use of the site depending on what your students are ready for.

The site's teachers' guides are useful, but they're only available for some of the sixth-grade activities. Alternately, you can use the data from Matific's reports to check for understanding and plan your mini-lessons to target students' needs. Teaching ratio and proportion can be challenging, and Matific has some standout tools to help. In "Half-Baked Idea," an instructive activity helps students organize data to solve problems. Students build a ratio table and graph based on a recipe. The information is used to solve contextualized problems. The activity is an engaging way for students to assess and strengthen their proportional reasoning skills.

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Standards:

Key Standards Supported

Geometry

  • 6.G.1

    Find the area of right triangles, other triangles, special quadrilaterals, and polygons by composing into rectangles or decomposing into triangles and other shapes; apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.

  • 6.G.2

    Find the volume of a right rectangular prism with fractional edge lengths by packing it with unit cubes of the appropriate unit fraction edge lengths, and show that the volume is the same as would be found by multiplying the edge lengths of the prism. Apply the formulas V = l w h and V = b h to find volumes of right rectangular prisms with fractional edge lengths in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.

  • 6.G.3

    Draw polygons in the coordinate plane given coordinates for the vertices; use coordinates to find the length of a side joining points with the same first coordinate or the same second coordinate. Apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.

  • 6.G.4

    Represent three-dimensional figures using nets made up of rectangles and triangles, and use the nets to find the surface area of these figures. Apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.

Statistics And Probability

  • 6.SP.1

    Recognize a statistical question as one that anticipates variability in the data related to the question and accounts for it in the answers. For example, “How old am I?” is not a statistical question, but “How old are the students in my school?” is a statistical question because one anticipates variability in students’ ages.

  • 6.SP.2

    Understand that a set of data collected to answer a statistical question has a distribution which can be described by its center, spread, and overall shape.

  • 6.SP.3

    Recognize that a measure of center for a numerical data set summarizes all of its values with a single number, while a measure of variation describes how its values vary with a single number.

  • 6.SP.4

    Display numerical data in plots on a number line, including dot plots, histograms, and box plots.

  • 6.SP.5

    Summarize numerical data sets in relation to their context, such as by:

  • 6.SP.5.a

    Reporting the number of observations.

  • 6.SP.5.b

    Describing the nature of the attribute under investigation, including how it was measured and its units of measurement.

  • 6.SP.5.c

    Giving quantitative measures of center (median and/or mean) and variability (interquartile range and/or mean absolute deviation), as well as describing any overall pattern and any striking deviations from the overall pattern with reference to the context in which the data were gathered.

  • 6.SP.5.d

    Relating the choice of measures of center and variability to the shape of the data distribution and the context in which the data were gathered.

The Number System

  • 6.NS.1

    Interpret and compute quotients of fractions, and solve word problems involving division of fractions by fractions, e.g., by using visual fraction models and equations to represent the problem. For example, create a story context for (2/3) ÷ (3/4) and use a visual fraction model to show the quotient; use the relationship between multiplication and division to explain that (2/3) ÷ (3/4) = 8/9 because 3/4 of 8/9 is 2/3. (In general, (a/b) ÷ (c/d) = ad/bc.) How much chocolate will each person get if 3 people share 1/2 lb of chocolate equally? How many 3/4-cup servings are in 2/3 of a cup of yogurt? How wide is a rectangular strip of land with length 3/4 mi and area 1/2 square mi?

  • 6.NS.5

    Understand that positive and negative numbers are used together to describe quantities having opposite directions or values (e.g., temperature above/below zero, elevation above/below sea level, credits/debits, positive/negative electric charge); use positive and negative numbers to represent quantities in real-world contexts, explaining the meaning of 0 in each situation.

  • 6.NS.6

    Understand a rational number as a point on the number line. Extend number line diagrams and coordinate axes familiar from previous grades to represent points on the line and in the plane with negative number coordinates.

  • 6.NS.6.a

    Recognize opposite signs of numbers as indicating locations on opposite sides of 0 on the number line; recognize that the opposite of the opposite of a number is the number itself, e.g., –(–3) = 3, and that 0 is its own opposite.

  • 6.NS.6.b

    Understand signs of numbers in ordered pairs as indicating locations in quadrants of the coordinate plane; recognize that when two ordered pairs differ only by signs, the locations of the points are related by reflections across one or both axes.

  • 6.NS.6.c

    Find and position integers and other rational numbers on a horizontal or vertical number line diagram; find and position pairs of integers and other rational numbers on a coordinate plane.

  • 6.NS.7

    Understand ordering and absolute value of rational numbers.

  • 6.NS.7.a

    Interpret statements of inequality as statements about the relative position of two numbers on a number line diagram. For example, interpret –3 > –7 as a statement that –3 is located to the right of –7 on a number line oriented from left to right.

  • 6.NS.7.b

    Write, interpret, and explain statements of order for rational numbers in real-world contexts. For example, write –3 oC > –7 oC to express the fact that –3 oC is warmer than –7 oC.

  • 6.NS.7.c

    Understand the absolute value of a rational number as its distance from 0 on the number line; interpret absolute value as magnitude for a positive or negative quantity in a real-world situation. For example, for an account balance of –30 dollars, write |–30| = 30 to describe the size of the debt in dollars.

  • 6.NS.7.d

    Distinguish comparisons of absolute value from statements about order. For example, recognize that an account balance less than –30 dollars represents a debt greater than 30 dollars.

  • 6.NS.8

    Solve real-world and mathematical problems by graphing points in all four quadrants of the coordinate plane. Include use of coordinates and absolute value to find distances between points with the same first coordinate or the same second coordinate.

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