6.RP.3.b: Solve unit rate problems including those involving unit pricing and constant speed.

Hands-on Activities

1. Grocery Store Hunt

Take your child to a local grocery store. Ask them to compare prices of different brands of the same product (like cereal) by calculating the price per unit weight (e.g., per ounce). Determine which product offers the best value.

2. Speed Checker

While on a drive, use the car's trip meter and time how long it takes to travel a certain distance. Then, have your child calculate the speed in miles per hour or kilometers per hour as a unit rate.

3. Recipe Conversion

Find a recipe that serves a certain number of people and ask your child to recalculate the ingredient amounts to serve a different number. This exercise involves ratios and proportional reasoning, which are closely linked to unit rates.

4. Fuel Efficiency Challenge

Track the amount of gas your car uses over a month and the total miles driven. Let your child calculate the car's fuel efficiency in miles per gallon, discussing how different driving conditions might affect the rate.

5. Data Plan Usage

If you have a monthly data plan for your phone, help your child calculate the cost per gigabyte of data used. This can be an eye-opener and a good practice for managing future budgets.

Strategies When Your Child Struggles

1. Breaking Down Problems

Encourage your child to break down unit rate problems into smaller, more manageable parts. For example, separate the total cost from the total quantity before dividing.

2. Using Visual Aids

Help them visualize problems using bar models or ratio tables. This can make understanding the relationships between numbers easier.

3. Checking Work with Inverse Operations

Teach them to multiply the unit rate by the quantity to check if it matches the original number, reinforcing their understanding of the relationship.

4. Relating to Real Life

Whenever possible, relate problems to real-life scenarios they can understand or have experienced, such as buying candy or traveling.

5-Minute Activities

Activity 1: Price Per Pencil

Give your child a scenario where you need to buy 24 pencils, and a store offers a pack of 10 pencils for $4. Ask them to calculate the price per pencil.

Activity 2: Walking Speed

Time how long it takes to walk to a nearby park or location and calculate the walking speed based on the distance covered.

Activity 3: Lemonade Stand

If your child sells 30 cups of lemonade for $45, ask them to figure out how much one cup costs.

Activity 4: Book Reading Pace

If your child reads 150 pages in 5 hours, ask them to calculate how many pages they read per hour.

Mid-Year Expectations

By the middle of 6th grade, your child should be able to:

• Students should be able to calculate unit rates from ratios.
• Students should be able to interpret unit rates in the context of a problem.

End-of-Year Expectations

By the end of 6th grade, your child should be able to:

• Students should confidently solve complex unit rate problems.
• Students should be able to apply unit rate calculations in various real-world contexts.

Mastery Signs

Your child has mastered this standard when they can:

• Ability to independently calculate unit rates and apply them to solve real-world problems.
• Ability to explain the process and reasoning behind the calculation of unit rates.

Questions to Ask:

Ask your child to solve these problems and explain their process:

• If a car travels 300 miles in 5 hours, what is its average speed in miles per hour?
• A 12-pack of soda costs $4.80. What is the cost per can?
• If you can buy 3 kilograms of bananas for $1.50, how much does 1 kilogram cost?
• John runs 9 miles in 3 hours. What is his running speed in miles per hour?