Objective
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to apply arithmetic concepts to solve problems related to the musical Mama Mia.
Materials and Prep
- Pencil
- Calculator (optional)
- Access to the musical Mama Mia
No prior knowledge is required for this lesson.
Activities
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Watch the musical Mama Mia and pay attention to the dance numbers.
After watching, choose one of your favorite dance sequences and count the number of dance moves performed by each dancer.
Write down the number of dance moves for each dancer.
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Using the numbers you recorded, find the total number of dance moves performed in the chosen dance sequence.
If you want, you can use a calculator to help with the calculations.
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Imagine that you are a choreographer for Mama Mia and you need to create a new dance sequence.
Decide on the number of dance moves you want in your sequence.
Write down the number of dance moves you chose.
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Now, calculate the difference between the total number of dance moves in the chosen dance sequence from the musical and the number of dance moves you chose for your new sequence.
What is the difference? Is it positive or negative?
Eighth Grade Talking Points
- "Arithmetic is a branch of mathematics that deals with numbers and their operations, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division."
- "In this lesson, we are applying arithmetic concepts to solve problems related to the musical Mama Mia."
- "We watched the musical and counted the number of dance moves performed by each dancer in a chosen sequence."
- "We then found the total number of dance moves in the sequence by adding up the individual counts."
- "Next, we imagined ourselves as choreographers and decided on the number of dance moves we wanted in our own sequence."
- "We calculated the difference between the total number of dance moves in the chosen sequence and our chosen number of dance moves."
- "This difference tells us whether our sequence has more or fewer dance moves compared to the original sequence."