Math in Our World: Read-a-Thon

Both stacks have the same number of books (5). Santo's stack of books (on the left) is taller than Precious's stack. The book in Santo's stack are hardcovers. The books in Precious's stack are paperbacks.

Precious and Santo both like to read books in a series.

Santo’s stack is on the left, and Precious's is on the right. It took Santo 14 days to read his shortest book. It had 392 pages.

It took Precious 7 days to read her shortest book. It had 294 pages.

What do you notice? What do you wonder?
Use pictures, models, or numbers to show what you know about the number of pages in the books or the time it takes to read them.
What mathematical questions can you ask about this situation? Answer any questions you can!

How could you get started?

Estimate the total number of pages in one of each person’s books. Use a ratio table to estimate a total for each 5-book series.
Assume all the books in each series are about the same length. Estimate how many pages are in each series.

Follow-up

Show your work to someone else, and explain your thinking. Did they understand?
Ask if they have any other questions you can answer!

Challenge

Find a book you love. Read it for 15 minutes and see how many pages you read. Then use that information to find out how many pages you read in an hour. What if you read all day? How many pages would you read? How long would it take to read the whole book if you didn’t stop reading?

Printable Version

Reference for Educators