This September 30 is Orange Shirt Day. Why do we recognize it? To honour reconciliation. To learn about the impact of residential schools. To show that every child matters.
Before starting these math tasks, I highly recommend that you watch this video to understand the story that inspired Orange Shirt Day.
300 Sleeps: Orange Shirt Day Math Tasks
No matter what grade you are in, take some time to think about what it would have been like to be away from your family for 300 sleeps. In fact, let’s explore this number and see if we can discover something that might help us understand how hard that would have been:
- Everyone: let’s pause quietly and silently for 300 seconds. How can you time yourself for 300 seconds? Timers use seconds, but they start to make minutes every time we reach a certain number of seconds. Work with a buddy and see if you can figure out how many minutes a timer might be able to make out of 300 seconds. Record your ideas in your math journal. When you have figured it out, sit with this buddy and feel what it is like to be still and quiet for 300 seconds.
- In your math journal, write what it was like to sit for 300 seconds. What did it feel like? What did you do to make it easier?
- Now let’s do some thinking about hours and minutes and seconds. In your math journal, record what you know! Hours in a day? Minutes in an hour? Seconds in a minute?
- Now extend this! Can you figure out seconds in an hour? Seconds in a day? Minutes in a day? Explore these numbers. Show your work in your math journal.
- Keep extending! Can you figure out how many seconds in 300 days?
- Think: you had to sit for 300 seconds once. Imagine being lonely and missing your family for enough seconds to fill 300 days! Write about what that might have been like.
Wow I never knew how orange shirt day started