Tasting the Ratio Rainbow

Our last ratio lesson was a yummy one! I used Skittles to give students a hands-on lab experience working with ratios. Each pair of students organized their Skittles and filled out a table recording the number of each color they had. Then they found and reduced ratios depending on the amount of each color they had. Each group's ratios were different, but they all reduced their ratios into simplest form when necessary. 

Students also worked on ratio explanations, such as, "For every 2 purple Skittles there are 3 yellow Skittles," and, "3 out of every 10 Skittles are orange." The second explanation wording is more challenging for my students, as they are comparing part-to-total instead of part-to-part. It is something we will be working on more during this upcoming week! 

Lastly, students modeled bar diagrams with their Skittles on the paper towel and then drew them on their paper to visualize breaking an amount of Skittles into two groups according to a given ratio (2:3 or 3:5). 

For the downloadable template I created to go with this lab, click here! :-)