Ratios with Michael Jordan

Ratios and Proportions.

I LOVED this activity, but unfortunately, it's not something we do in 5th grade. BUT...my goal is to try and work it in at the end of the year with my kids. :)

We started by looking at this picture of Michael Jordan's hand. WOW. I put my hand on top of it and it was just crazy how big that man's hand is!!! 

Then we measured with a ruler (cm) his hand and then mine. 

MJ's hand was 24 cm and mine was 17cm

ratio = 0.708 or 71%

Our goal here was to see what Michael Jordan must feel like when he holds a pop can and when he grips a basketball. So using our measurements we began to create objects proportional to our hands. We used this to help us create the objects. 

 

It's kind of hard to read...but it's just telling you that the distance around a pop can is 20.9 cm and it's height is 12.2cm. To scale the can down to my size I multiplied both of these numbers by my 71%. Then I got a piece of paper and measured it out, taped it up and walla...a miniature pop can. :)

(You do the same thing for the basketball, 74cm) 

Here is my hand holding a can of pop. It felt so funny...and SMALL

Then we used a balloon to represent our basketball. Isn't it just crazy how small the ball looks?!? (Mine has a circumference of 52.5cm and a normal one is 74cm!!) No wonder he could hold the ball over his head, through his leg, spin in a circle and dunk! Haha..just kidding. 

This little activity was so fun and really got us thinking about our hands in compassion to his (ratio) and then we were able to construct ideas proportional to Michael Jordan. How neat!!!

Although it did cross my mind that kids these dats are probably more and more going to be asking "Who is Michael Jordan?!?" So I was thinking this would be really cool if we could get the hand print of a modern day player. (Possibly from my team, OKC Thunder!!!) So if anyone out there reading this runs into Kevin Durrant or Russell Westbrook, just ask them for a hand print and send it my way. 

'Preciate ya! 

:)