How Many Movies Can You See In One Day?

 
It’s a hot day outside and you and your parent/guardian want to cool off by going to the theater to see some movies.  The longer you stay at the movie theater, the longer you will stay cool.
 

• Create a schedule that shows the most movies you could see in one day.

 

These questions may be useful in helping students down the problem solving path:

• What is a guess for the number of movies you could see in one day that is too low?
• What is a guess for the number of movies you could see in one day that is too high?
• What information would be useful in figuring this out?
• How can you tell when a movie would end?
• What happens in a movie theater before/after a movie plays?

 

Smaller movie theaters with less theaters tend to set up their movies so that they all start at about the same time.  For example, using Option 1 you will notice that all movies start around 1 PM but end around 3:30 PM.  Then the next set of movies all begin at around 4 PM.  As such, if you pick Option 1 as your theater, students should come up with different schedules to see four movies.

This is a great opportunity to have students demonstrate Math Practice 3 – Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.  Students will not likely realize that all answers will be four, and they can explain how they came up with their schedules.

If you want to ensure a variety of answers, then I recommend Option 4.  It is from a large theater and there are movies starting every hour.

You may have to modify the situation slightly to take into account that third and fourth graders cannot see a PG-13 or R rated movie.

Also, I don’t have a problem with students bending the rules of the scenario slightly as long as they can justify themselves.  For example, they could reason that the first 10 minutes after a movie’s showtime are just previews so they could come in late and still see the complete movie.

You can find other examples of theater schedules on websites such as Yahoo! Movies, Moviefone, and Fandango.
 

• Movie schedule (Option 1):

• Movie schedule (Option 2):

• Movie schedule (Option 3):

• Movie schedule (Option 4 – Challenge):

 

• CCSS 3.MD.1 Tell and write time to the nearest minute and measure time intervals in minutes. Solve word problems involving addition and subtraction of time intervals in minutes, e.g., by representing the problem on a number line diagram.
• CCSS 4.MD.2 Use the four operations to solve word problems involving distances, intervals of time, liquid volumes, masses of objects, and money, including problems involving simple fractions or decimals, and problems that require expressing measurements given in a larger unit in terms of a smaller unit. Represent measurement quantities using diagrams such as number line diagrams that feature a measurement scale.

 

• Yahoo! Movies
• Moviefone
• Fandango