Lesson: Fear by the Numbers

Play the video “All Kinds of Emotions.” Then, before or after reading the article, spark a discussion based on the following questions:

• List a few things that scare you and why. Order your list from most scary to least scary.
• A child’s average heart rate is 70-110 beats per minute. How does your heart rate change when you feel scared? Explain.

• Which number is halfway between 0 and 100? (50) 50 represents your midpoint.
• Draw a number line showing 0, 50, and 100. Then plot the number 35. Is 35 closer to 0 or to 100? How do you know? (35 is closer to 0; explanations will vary.)
• What is a number between 0 and 100 that would be closer to 100 than 0? (Answers will vary; accept any number from 51 to 99.)
• When we want to make a number simpler, or easier to work with, we can round it. Rounding is when you change a number according to a place value, but you keep the value close to what it was.
• Play the math video “Rounding With Number Lines.”

• In between which two numbers was the midpoint located? (3,100 and 3,200)
  
• How was the midpoint determined? (Since you are rounding to the nearest hundred, you look at the hundreds place in both numbers. 150 is the midpoint between 100 and 200, so 3,150 is the midpoint of 3,100 and 3,200.)
• How would the number line and midpoint change if 3,184 were rounded to the nearest ten? (Answers will vary. Possible answers: The increments would change, counting by ones. The number line would start at 3,180 and end at 3,190 with a midpoint of 3,185. The point for 3,184 would be plotted right next to the midpoint.)

 Have students complete problems 1 through 4 on page 5 of the article.

Skills Sheets: Level Down: Rounding to the Nearest Ten Match (3.NBT.A.1) | On Level: DynaDash: Rounding With Number Lines (3.NBT.A.1) | Level Up: Roll and Round (3.NBT.A.1, 4.NBT.A.3)

SEL (Social-emotional learning activity/prompt): Have students reflect on some of their own fears. Ask students to brainstorm some strategies that they could use to lessen some of their fears. For example, talk with someone about what worries them. Have students write or draw about 3 strategies that could help them with overcoming their fears.

DynaMath@Home: Have students collect 5 books from around their home, and then make a list of the total number of pages in each book. Using their list, task students with rounding each number of pages to nearest ten and hundred. For an additional challenge, have students plot each number on a number line.