Chanukah Activities- Chag Sameach

When I first stopped posting weekly, I had intended to post holiday ideas a few times a year, as the chagim came up. Although life has gotten in the way, since I'm planning some activities for my classrooms, I thought I'd quickly share what I have. Chag Chanukah Sameach!

Activity 1:
For younger grades, I always love playing dreidel with the students and having them track and graph the results of their spins as bar graphs. If the students play for long enough, their results should approximate even results for all 4 letters. You can combine data from students in the class to have them see how the comparisons change and the results (usually) even out across the letters as they combine the data from more people. 
**For younger grades to visualize the graph, you can have the students cut out their bar graphs from their own papers and tape them together on the wall or board to quickly see the growth of adding together the data without having them tediously count and add the bar graphs. 
**For older students, they can calculate statistics for the results of each letter and compare how the statistics change when they combine data from classmates together.

Activity 2:
In my Algebra 1 class, we recently began graphing, distinguishing between discrete and continuous graphs, identifying restricted graphs, identifying domains, ranges, and graph intercepts. With these topics in mind, I created the following worksheet with practical application problem solving for my classes.

Chanukah Algebra

Question 1:

Thinking about Discrete vs Continuous-

Graphs of candles vs oil used over Chanukah.

1)    What would be the difference in a graph of the number of candles used over time or by number of people and the amount of oil used over time or by number of people?

2)    Assuming that 1 oz of oil burns for the minimum zman, make an argument for why the graphs of candles and oil should actually be similar.

a.     Can you make a counter-argument for why the graphs should still be different?

Question 2:

For your doughnut sale, you’re charging $1.50 for jelly doughnuts and $1.25 for glazed doughnuts. Assuming you sold $375 worth of doughnuts, draw the graph of your possible sales. Use the following questions to help guide you in creating your graph.

1)    The equation that represents your sales would be: __________________________

2)    What are the two intercepts of your graph? 

3)    What do they each represent? 

Question 3:

For your Chanukah carnival, each student is allowed 3 turns at a booth for each ticket that they have.

1)    Write a function for the number of turns that a student gets based on the number of tickets they have.

2)    Draw a graph of this function.

3)    What is the domain, if each student is allowed no more than 10 tickets? (use the table below to organize your answers)

4)    What is the range, given this limit on the number of tickets? (use the table below to organize your answers)

__________
__________

Question 4:

You’re lighting an oil menorah this year, which takes 1 oz of oil for each light. Assuming you use this menorah for all 8 nights, and you use a regular candle for the shamash-

1)    How many ounces of oil will you need for the full chag?

2)    You want to buy oil for a number of people to be able to light menorah for the whole week. Write a function for how much oil (in oz) you will need based on the number of people you give oil to.

3)    You bought the oil in 4 qt bottles (160 oz) and were able to buy 18 bottles, which gives you 2,880 oz of oil. What is the most number of people you can give oil to for them to have for the whole week?

4)    What are the domain and range for this situation? 

5)    Draw a graph to represent the possible number of people who you could provide oil to and how much oil you will have given out.