How Did You Spend Your Summer Daze?

This lesson plan asks students to record how they spend the hours of a typical summer day. They will then write as fractions, decimals, and percents and then compose a circle graph. A "concentration" game is also included for easy differentiation. The plan could be used as a lesson or as an assessment.

Weblink address (URL): 
How Did You Spend Your Summer Daze?

Standards & Objectives

Learning objectives: 

Students will:

  • Practice writing hours per day as a fraction of a day in lowest terms.
  • Calculate a decimal from a fraction.
  • Calculate a percent from a decimal.
  • Calculate the number of degrees of a pie chart that each of their activities should be allotted.
  • Create a pie chart using their calculations and a protractor.
  • Practice conversions between fractions, decimals and percents in a game setting.
Essential and guiding questions: 
  • What information does the pie chart give us very quickly?
  • What other way could we have displayed the same information?
  • What is the advantage of presenting your data in a pie chart?

Lesson Variations

Blooms taxonomy level: 
Applying
Extension suggestions: 
  • This activity can be changed from a typical summer day to an actual school day or other specific day. This allows for the activity to be done later in the year. You may also have students keep track of the amount of time they spend on each activity for a day so they could create a more realistic or accurate chart.
  • Combine all data from a class into one large pie chart. Students can then compare how much time they spend on an activity compared to the entire class.

Helpful Hints

Materials:

  • Protractor
  • Coffee filters or similar circular objects
  • Colored markers, pencils, or crayons
  • Black markers
  • Computers or tablets with Internet connection
  • How I Spent My Summer Daze Activity Sheet 

References

Contributors: 
Ashley King
Originator: 
Ayers Institute for Learning & Innovation