Students start with a rectangular sheet of paper that represents a cake. They simulate eating half of the cake by cutting the sheet in half and removing one of the halves. They eat half of what is left and continue this process. They describe the pattern, noting that after they repeat this about ten times, the cake is essentially gone. Investigate and describe how certain quantities change over time.
Students keep a daily record of the temperature both inside and outside the classroom.
They graph these temperatures and look at the patterns. Students keep a monthly record of their height and record the data collected on a bulletin board. At the end of the school year, they describe what happened over time. Students play catch with a ball in the school playground. One person counts out the number of times the ball is thrown, the other counts out the distance that it travels, a third person adds that distance to the total, and a fourth person records the totals.