Math IS Real LIfe

So I've missed linking up the last couple of months with Math Is Real Life, but I actually had a reason to blog this month! I love this linky because this is exactly what I tell my parents to do when their children are struggling in math.  Math is all around us and it's awesome to see how all of my favorite math blogger friends are using math!

A monthly REAL WORLD math blog link-up hosted by

 4mulaFun, Fourth Grade Studio, Teaching to Inspire in 5th, AND MissMathDork

I wrote about crocheting in my Tried It Tuesday post this week.  This post is an extension of that first post!  

As I said, I am working on a blanket for a friend's baby.  I'm following this pattern.  

For the baby blanket size I have to crochet 192 rows.  I am using three different colors for the blanket and I've been doing a lot of math to figure out how much yarn I will need for the blanket and how much time it will take me to finish the blanket. 

I've calculated the time to finish a few different ways.  The first way is in days based on completing 6 rows each day.  If I can finish 6 rows a day, I will finish in 32 days.  I presented this problem to my students and they came up with some great strategies for dividing 192 by 6.  We've been working on the distributive property and they also love using the "hangman" method for division. When I can get back up to school, I will add their work samples!

The second way I've calculated time to finish is in minutes. It takes me about 8 minutes to complete a row if I don't stop or get distracted by anything.  I timed it! :)

So to complete all 192 rows will take me 1,536 minutes or 25 hours and 36 minutes.  

After I presented the first problem, I took it up a notch to give my students a challenge.  I told them I wanted to have the blanket finished by Christmas day.  They had to figure out how many rows I would I have to crochet each day to be finished in time.  We worked it out on December 3rd, so that would mean I would have 22 days to complete the blanket.  This division problem was way more challenging and ended up giving them quite a large remainder.  My next step (whenever we go back to school after all of this snow) will be to have them figure out how to turn the remainder into what fraction of a row I would have to complete each day in addition to the complete rows.  

Not only have I figured out how long this lovely project will take me, I've also been working to see if 192 will allow me to end the blanket at the end of the pattern and how many rows of each color there will be.  The 6 rows actually is the end of the pattern because there are two rows of each color.  To figure out how many rows of each color there will be, I just had to get one-third of the total number of rows 192/3 or just double the number of days it will take to finish the blanket.  So there will be 64 rows of each color in the blanket!  

I've made a little product that includes 6 problems about my own crochet math experience.  You can purchase it from my TpT store {here}

Make sure to go check out the other links on the Math IS Real Life linky party!