Math Choices from the Wild

The Puffin Eatery:

Math Choices From the Wild

Look at the menu. Read the problems about puffin food choices. Check the menu. Solve the problems.

1. The puffin parents have been sitting on their egg for 42 days. Soon it will hatch. When the male goes for food, he fills up with 2 pounds of hake and one sand eel. How much did he pay?

______

2. When the puffling hatches, it needs food. Mother arrives with 2 pounds of small herring and one pound of capelin. How much did this cost?

______

3. It is August. The parents have left for the ocean. The puffling will soon follow. When she dives off the cliff, she has an order of 5 pounds of hake waiting. How much will she pay?

______

4. During the months at sea, puffins often eat what they can find. Mom puffin had to eat 2 pounds of crustaceans, 3 mollusks, 4 shrimp, and 2 bristle worms. How much did she pay?

______

Dear Colleague,

Helping children make connections between subject areas is so valuable and you know we are great fans of that here at Maggie’s Earth Adventures. This has been one of our favorite ways to integrate math and science – using a menu to illustrate what different species might “order.” This not only leads to greater motivation but also helps our children to see key connections. Your students learn about puffin habits, solve problems using calculations skills, and they practice referring to another document to gather their data. What fantastic math practice!

Please check out our Archive section for other menu offering math practice: The Panda Café and The Wetlands Restaurant. Your children can have fun, yet meaningful practice by creating their own menus and problems for animals and habitats you have studied this year.

Additionally, you can integrate this activity with language arts text features. We have written the problems to resemble the breeding cycle of a puffin. After completing the math, encourage children to look at the sequence of the problems. Can they see this time line on their own? Use guided questions to help them “discover” this aspect of the activity. Then challenge children to make a timeline of the lifecycle of a puffling, from egg to the time at sea.

As always, I want to remind you to check out the wonderful live cams at explore.org. The puffin burrow cam will be live soon!

Happy teaching,

Dr. Kathy

Answer Key:

1. $16.50

2. $12.25

3. $6.25

4. $23.50

Goals:

Students will use the information from an imaginary “Puffin Menu” to answer questions about the food these birds might “order.” This type of activity integrates math calculation and science concepts. This WAP also lends itself to the creation of a timeline. It is available on the intermediate and primary levels with a companion emergent reader activity. The activity correlates with the Number and Operations Strand and the Data Analysis and Probability Strand of NCTM’s National Standards and with the “Operations and Algebraic Thinking” Strand of Common Core.