Using The Basketball Game To Teach About Percentages

This week we are working on our basketball basics. We learned how to dribble, pass and shoot. We talked about how to shoot and where to shoot from. We had the kids keep track of their shots and how successful they were from each spot. We introduced the concept of percentages in an easy form of “I made 5 out of 10 shots from inside the lane.” We also talked about shooting from outside the lane. We had the kids track how successful they were from outside the lane. They had to write down in the simple form of “I made 2 out of 10 from outside the lane.” This led us to questioning how effective we could be from different spots on the floor. We asked the kids how they would do from the different spots (estimation) and then they saw the real world numbers telling how successful they really were.