Grades 6–8 Math Activity Set 4: Sweet Success and More

These activities will help students build their skills in working with fractions, decimals, ratios, and percent.

Activity 1: Sweet Success

Businesses that sell food products often need to combine ingredients in the correct amounts. They also need to determine what price to charge for the products they sell.

In this activity, you will use fractions and decimals to connect the weights and prices of fruits and nuts and identify a sale price for an Apple Cherry Mix.

Materials Needed:

Download the student sheet

Download the answer sheet

Use the Important Facts to complete the activity.

Important Facts

• Ingredients in Apple Cherry Mix (1 bag)
  • ¾ pound of dried apples
  • ½ pound of dried cherries
  • ¼ pound of walnuts
• Cost of Ingredients
  • Dried apples: $2.80 per pound
  • Dried cherries: $4.48 per pound
  • Walnuts: $3.96 per pound

Check your answers against the answer sheet.

Extend the Project

Write a recipe for a fruit salad. Be sure to include the amount (in pounds) of each fruit in your salad. Research the cost per pound of the fruits and determine how much you should charge for your salad. Explain how you determined the cost of the salad.

Activity 2: Meet Me in St. Louis

Batting averages are an example of converting a rate to a unit rate represented as a decimal. A batting average is calculated from the ratio of a player’s hits to the number of at bats. Batting averages are usually recorded as a decimal to the thousandths place. This project connects batting averages of several players from the St. Louis Cardinals to ratios and percent.

Materials Needed:

Download the student sheet

Download the answer sheet

Use the Important Facts to complete the activity.

Check answers against the answer sheet.

Extend the Project

Research other types of sports statistics, such as a football quarterback’s pass completion percentage. Find statistics for several players, and write the numbers as fractions, decimals, and percent. Then compare the statistics of one player to those of another.