A Rocket & Raven series
A free online middle-school math course for Grades 6 to 8: ratios, rates and speed, percents, dividing fractions, decimals, negative numbers, proportional relationships, statistics and probability, worked out with counters, paper strips, a tape measure and a timer, plus a Data Fair project.
Ratios and Data is a free online math course for Grades 6 to 8 that uses only things a family already has: two colors of counters such as dried beans or buttons, paper strips, masking tape, a tape measure, a kitchen timer, a paper plate and a paper clip. The crew is planning a Field Day of games for the younger kids on their street, and every week's math does a job for it. Students mix paint and lemonade in ratios, time runs to find speed as a unit rate, count sign-ups as percents, divide fractions to share supplies, measure the course in decimals, read temperatures below zero and work with negative numbers on a number line, graph proportional relationships and spot the straight line through the origin, survey the neighborhood and display the answers in dot plots, histograms and box plots, summarize data with mean, median and spread, and build a fair spinner game with probability. Every question is checked as the student answers it, every number answer is computed by the course itself, and the course maps week by week to the Common Core Grade 6 and 7 standards for ratios, the number system and statistics, with a first look at Grade 8 scatter plots. It ends with a Data Fair the student runs for the family. Short lessons run Monday to Friday, with a hands-on Numbers Lab each week, and Saturday is Data Day.
The course is free, start to finish.
Free online middle-school math course · 12 weeks
A kitchen-table math lab: ratios, rates, percents, fractions, decimals, negative numbers, proportional relationships, statistics, probability and a Data Fair.
Nothing. Ratios and Data is free from start to finish, with no card. A free parent account saves each student's progress.
Two colors of small counters (dried beans, buttons or paper squares), strips of paper, masking tape, a ruler or tape measure, a kitchen timer or a phone clock, a paper plate and a paper clip for a spinner, graph paper or plain paper, a marker and a notebook.
Yes. Number Trail covers Kindergarten to Grade 5. Ratios and Data picks up at Grade 6 with ratios, rates and percents, and assumes whole-number operations, fractions and decimals to hundredths.
The Common Core Grade 6 and 7 standards for ratios and proportional relationships, the number system and statistics and probability, plus the Grade 8 scatter-plot standard. Expressions, equations and geometry are left for a later course.
No. Timed runs happen on flat ground with shoes on, pouring is done over a tray, small counters stay away from children under three, and surveys ask only family and friends with a grown-up present. Every hands-on activity carries a safety note.