You are on a gameshow and the host shows you three doors. Behind one door is a suitcase with $1 million in it, and behind the other two doors are sacks of coal. The host tells you to choose a door, and that the prize behind that door will be yours to keep.
You point to one of the three doors. The host says, “Before we open the door you pointed to, I am going to open one of the other doors.” He points to one of the other doors, and it swings open, revealing a sack of coal behind it.
“Now I will give you a choice,” the host tells you. “You can either stick with the door you originally chose, or you can choose to switch to the other unopened door.”
Should you switch doors, stick with your original choice, or does it matter?

Enjoy another blog free week! We will resume the blog AFTER testing!

There are 20 potatoes in a 5 pound bag. A restaurant uses about 2 potatoes per order of french fries. They charge $0.95 for an order of fries.

How much money does the restaurant take in on a day they use 400 pounds of potatoes?

You may have seen this post on social media.  When people answer in the ‘comment’ section they are so sure they are right (when they are not).  What is the correct answer for this problem?  What do you think is the most common wrong answer?  What mistake are people making when they get the wrong answer?  What ‘skill’ do you need in order to solve this problem successfully? Please feel free to reply to other students’ comments as well and defend your solution or POLITELY explain why you feel their solution is incorrect! 🙂

The Pizza Palace has started to make square pizzas. This sounds good to Myra, who wants her family to get one for dinner.

“No way,” says her brother Kenji. “It costs too much. A 12-inch round pizza with four toppings costs $11.00 at Mondo’s. The Pizza Palace wants $13.00 for their 12-inch square pizza with four toppings.”

Show which pizza company is the better deal.

Before completing this problem, please watch this video: Rounding Decimals

Mr. Meissner LOVES to go grocery shopping! While at the grocery store, Mr. Meissner bought a juicy steak that weighed 4.75 pounds for $3.89 per pound, 4 dozen eggs for $1.05 per dozen, 2 gallons of milk for $1.99 per gallon, and 3 loaves of bread for $1.79 per loaf. How much did Mr. Meissner spend at the grocery store? 

**Remember how many decimal places money has!!!**

The tires on a compact car are 18 inches in diameter. How far does the car travel after the tires turn once to the nearest inch? How far does the car travel after 2500 rotations of the tires? Write your final answer in feet.

Clayton students volunteered to help renovate the playground for the Kindergartners at Towles Elementary school. City regulations require the sand underneath the swings be at least 15 inches deep. The sand under both swing sets was only 12 inches deep when the renovation started.
The rectangular area under the small swing set measures 9 feet by 12 feet and required 40 bags of sand to increase the depth by 3 inches. How many bags of sand will the students need to cover the rectangular area under the large swing set if it is 1.5 times as long and 1.5 times as wide as the area under the small swing set?

The students in Madddie’s class built some solar-powered robots which they raced in the cafeteria of the school.

After the race Maddie drew the graph shown below to represent the distance d, in meters, that each of the three robots A, B, and C traveled after t seconds.

A) Which of the following statements about robot B are true? (select all that apply)
∙ Robot B traveled in a different direction than the other two robots.
∙ Robot B traveled 5 meters in 7.5 seconds
∙ Robot B traveled 7.5 meters in 5 seconds
∙ Robot B traveled 2/5 meters per second
∙ Robot B traveled 3/2 meters per second
∙ None of these are true
B) How do the speeds of the robots compare? (Choose one)
∙ The Robots all traveled at the same speed, they just left at different times
∙ Robot (A/B/C) is the fastest and Robot (A/B/C) was the slowest
∙ There is not enough information given to compare how fast the robots traveled
Please remember that correct answers without explanations don’t receive full credit.

Taylor and Anya are friends that live 63 miles apart. Sometimes on a Saturday they ride toward each other’s houses on their bikes and meet at the halfway point. One Saturday, they left their houses at 8am and met at 11am. Taylor rode at 12.5 miles per hour. How fast did Anya ride?

After eating at your favorite restaurant, you know that the bill before tax is $52.60 and that the sales tax rate is 8%. You decide to leave a 20% tip for the waiter based on the pre-tax amount.

How much should you leave for the waiter?

How much will the total bill be, including tax and tip?

To receive full credit your answers must include your reasoning for your solutions!

A likeable person knowingly trades baseball cards with the sprightly kid (or lowly legal eagle) and hesitantly operates a small fruit stand with a bride. Although she is somewhat soothed by an invitation to a tea party she will inexorably derive satisfaction from a cream puff with a shadow. A sublime ballerina finds a sleepy mastodon.

In order to get full credit for this week’s blog, ignore the gibberish above and post, “What’s up my peeps?”

The McCall family wants to rent a truck for a day. They have a choice of two truck rental companies. 

 Company A:  $30 per day plus $0.60 per mile

Company B:  $55 per day plus $0.35 per mile

I am offering my advice as to which company the McCall’s should pick. What other information would be important for me to know in order to give them the best advice possible? Explain why I need the information you are suggesting!

On the map above, 1/4 inch represents 1 mile. Candler, Canton, and Oteen are three cities on the map. 

a) If the distance between the real towns of Candler and Canton is 9 miles, how far apart are Candler and Canton on the map?

b) If Candler and Oteen are 3 1/2 inches apart on the map, what is the actual distance between Candler and Oteen in miles?

If you expect full credit, you will provide an explanation along with your answers!!!

Charlie was on a family trip. The diagram below shows what time it was when they started their trip and when he looked at his watch again. Charlie’s mom told him how far they had traveled in that amount of time.

Based on this information, what is the unit rate of the car? Explain what the unit rate means in the context of this problem.

Charles dad said the entire trip is 1200 miles. How long will it take them to get to their destination? Explain how you know!

According to the National Retail Federation, Americans spent about $254,064,000,000 celebrating Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Hanukkah this year. The U.S. Census says the population of the USA was about 316,000,000 in 2013. Assuming the population did not change in 2014, how much did each American spend during the holiday season? Write your solution as a UNIT RATE!

Happy Holidays! Enjoy your break! Check back on the blog for more funny GIFs throughout the break!!!