Above Average Fun With the iPod Touch: Merging Gymnastics and Math

As a homeschooling mom and math educator, I am always looking for ways to bring authentic learning experiences into our "classroom."  Our daughters are members of the North Shore Flairs competitive gymnastics team.  Throughout the season, we keep track of their scores and their team's results.  We use a great application called Meet Tracker.  A couple of weeks ago, our 4th grader began her unit on calculating averages using the Singapore Math (level 5B) math curriculum.  I love this program!  If you are not familiar with this program, Singapore pushes critical thinking and problem solving and offers many opportunities to see how math can be applied to various situations.  However, I thought it would be fun to take a "break" from the book and turn her world- the world of gymnastics.  When I mentioned the idea to our daughter, she beamed with excitement and could not wait to get started.

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The assignment is structured after a real gymnastics meet.  There are four rotations with an awards ceremony at the end.  Questions are to be answered at the end of each rotation and recorded on your handout.  Upon completion, the results are to be sent via gmail to your teacher (aka mommmy!).  Everything will be done electronically.

Rotation 1: Using the statistics compiled using Meet Tracker, calculate your season averages for vault, bars, beam, floor, and all-around.  One caveat, all work must be done by hand!  You can check your averages against those  on Meet Tracker. Note: Use only the scores from the four regular season meets.

Rotation 2: Using Kid's Zone Create-a-Graph, create bar charts for each event including all-around.  Using skitch, capture an image of your chart and include under rotation #2 on your handout. 

Rotation 3: Using the statistics for the four meets listed on Meet Tracker, list the team score for each meet and calculate the average team score for this year.

Rotation 4: State meets are the time to showcase all of your hard work over the past season.  For each event, compare your state meet results with the scores from the four earlier meets.  How do your state meet results compare with your season averages?  Determine the net change between your state meet score and your regular season average.  Recalculate your season average to include your state meet scores.

Awards Ceremony: Reflect on this past gymnastics season as you respond to the following questions.  Refer to the statistics gathered to support your responses. 

Which event posed the greatest challenge?  Overall, do you feel you improved throughout the season?

Technology Resources:

• Kid's Zone Create-a-Graph
• Google Docs
• Meet Tracker
• Skitch