Math In Disney World!
By: Tabitha Edwards
I Love Math!
I love math so
much because math
is always all around
you. It’s even around
you when you are at
Disney World!
The Plan…
My Mom, Mike, my friend Ashley and I all
planned to go to Disney World together
and have so much fun! But before we
went we had to plan out our trip…
We would have 4 days to plan for. So we
came up with a plan…
The Details…
We decided that we were going to take:
1 day to get to Disney World
1 day to spend in Disney World and have a
blast!
2 days to go shopping for stuff to
remember the trip.
So how do you think you could show a
comparison between what we do with the
day(s) to how many days there are total?
Could Fractions Work?
Do you think fractions would work for showing
this relationship between the days? If you think
yes… you would be right! Keep in mind that the
numerator is the number (or day in this case)
that we are using for something, and the
denominator is the number (amount of days)
that we have to work with, the total.
 So let’s see how showing our days as fractions
would look like.

Beginning of Fractions

1 day out of a total of 4 days is going to be spent in
getting to Disney World:
1 day getting to Disney World  Numerator (what we use)
4 days total we have  Denominator (what we have total)

1 day out of a total of 4 days is going to be spent in
Disney World:
1 day in Disney World  Numerator
4 days total we have  Denominator
Beginning of Fractions Continued
2 days out of a total of 4 days is going to be spent
shopping:
2 days of shopping  Numerator
4 days total we have  Denominator
This is how I think about the days and how we are
going to use them.
In terms of fractions we are using 2 out of our 4
days we have available to shop. This is what a
fraction means.
So…
So now that we figured out what a fraction
means and how we could use it.
 Off to Disney World Mom, Mike, Ashley, and I
go!

Math is Everywhere in Disney World!
I first found that out
when I saw
Cinderella’s Castle.
Then I began to
wonder…
How many towers it
took to make the
castle?
I counted…
Twelve Towers!
I found 12 towers. But
one out of the twelve
towers is much taller
than the rest. What
portion is the tallest
tower to the rest of
the towers?
Is there a way you can
show or explain the
comparison to me?
Fractions!
The fact that 1 out of a
total of 12 towers is
taller than the rest
than that means 1 out
of 12 towers is the
tallest. If you
thought that the best
way to show this
explanation is 1/12th
then you were right!
A Visit to Minnie Mouse
After I visited the castle
I went to visit Minnie
Mouse! I asked
Minnie how many
whole white polka
dots are on your
dress?
Minnie told me that in
1/4th of her dress
there are 15 whole
white polka dots.
Confusion
I didn’t quite understand what Minnie meant
by that so I tried to think of the problem
in another way…
¼ has 15 whole white polka dots.
Let’s think about this.
 1 out of 4 sections of
her dress has exactly
15 whole white polka
dots.
 So how could we
solve the problem?

http://www.dressaday.com/081306_OrangePolkaDotDress4.jpg
Let’s solve the problem!
So after thinking about the problem, I began to
figure out how many polka dots are on her dress
altogether knowing that there are 15 dots in 1
out of 4 sections of her dress. How would you
figure this problem out?
• There are 15 whole white polka dots in ¼
of Minnie Mouse’s dress. How many of
these dots are there in all on her dress?
You could…
*You know there are 15 dots in every ¼ or
a quarter section of her dress. And it
takes 4 sections of her dress to make it
whole- 4/4= 1 whole dress.
¼+¼ +¼ + ¼= 4/4 (1 whole dress)
15+15+ 15+ 15= 60 whole white polka dots
60 Whole White Polka Dots!
Here’s How You Do it!
Off to Sherwood Forest!
After I said bye to
Minnie I went to see
Friar Tuck and Robin
Hood to show them
the new Mickey
Mouse ears I had
earned from Mickey.
That’s a lot of ears!
When my mom took the picture she said
that there are 8 sets (or pairs) of ears
including my own personal pair and my
new Mickey ears.
• Then she asked me how many brown
ears are there out of the 8 ears she
counted?
How Many Brown Ears Did You Find?
When I looked at the
picture I saw that
Friar Tuck, Robin
Hood, and I (my
personal pair that I
already had) all had
brown ears. The only
ears that weren’t
brown were my black
Mickey Mouse ears.
What to do?
So… what can you do to show these
relationships between our ears? How
would you show how many brown ears
there are all together out of the total 8
ears that there originally are? How would
you show how many black ears out of the
total 8 ears there are?
You could…
Could we use fractions to show the relationship?
Yes! How would we use fractions?
You could…
Friar Tuck+ Robin Hood+ Me= Brown Ears
2/8 +
2/8
+ 2/8= 6/8= ¾
(we all have 2 ears each, add them together and
there are 6 out of 8 brown ears all together).
And ¾ is the same as 6/8 it is just shown in a
different way. It is an equivalent fraction!
Brown Ears

See… Me, Robin Hood,
and Friar Tuck all have 2
brown ears each which
adds up to a total of 6
brown ears out of 8
brown ears 6/8th. But
you can reduce it to ¾ .
How can you do this?
Well there are 4 pairs of
ears, and 3 out of the 4
pairs are brown. So ¾
are brown.
Brown ears vs. Black ears
So since there are a
total of 6/8th or 3 out
of 4 pairs of brown
ears in our picture…
how many black ears
are there?
Black Ears
•
We could…
2 out of the 8 ears are
black, so 2/8th are black
ears or we could also say
that 1 pair out of the 4
total pairs of ears are
black ears or ¼ . That’s
how many black ears
there are!
Souvenir time!
After saying bye to Friar Tuck and Robin
Hood, we all went to a Disney shop to buy
a souvenir. Mom gave me $28 and told
me that I could spend ¾ of it but the
other ¼ had to be put away into my
savings jar.
• So I thought to myself, what is ¾ of
$28? What do you think it is? How
would you figure it out?
You could…
So I have $28 and I can spend only ¾ of it. So if I
separate the $28 into separate and equal groups of 4
dollars it will be easier for me to figure out how much of
the 28 dollars I can spend. I end up with 7 equal groups
of 4 dollars. Now if I take 3 of the 4 dollars out of every
equal group of 4 I will know how much I can spend.
After counting up together how many dollars I took out
of the 7 groups of 4 dollars I come up with 21 dollars.
So I can spend $21 on a souvenir, that is ¾ of my original
$28.
Here is a visual way of doing the problem.
Donald or Tigger?
So now that I know how
much I can spend I
went to go and pick
out a souvenir. When
I got there I had to
choose between a
plush Donald Duck or
a plush Tigger.
Donald costs $15.75
and Tigger costs
$18.20.
http://www.embroiderymaster.com/W
ebsite_Images/Baby/TiggerPlush3.jpg
A Dilemma…
So here is the dilemma, based on how much
Donald and Tigger cost and how much
money I have I want to keep as much
change as possible.
• Which purchase will leave me with
more change? What will the change
difference be between what Donald
costs and what Tigger costs?
You could…
$21 is how much I can spend.
Donald costs $15.75.
Tigger costs $18.20.
Which is better and what is the difference?
$21.00
$21.00
$05.25
-$15.75
-$18.20
-$02.80
$05.25
$02.80
$02.45
Change with
Change with
The Difference
Donald
Tigger
And the winner is…
So since I am able to
have $5.25 as change
with buying Donald
Duck. Drum roll
please… I choose
Donald Duck. But
don’t worry Tigger, I
will buy you next
time.
All Good Things Must Come to an
End.
Well we visited Cinderella’s Castle.
We talked fashion with a sweet Minnie
Mouse.
We counted ears with Friar Tuck and Robin
Hood.
And we compared prices with Donald and
Tigger.
Boy I had a great time, did you? I hope you
did.
So It Seems We Have reached…
Resources

Tigger picture-
http://www.embroiderymaster.com/Website_Images/Baby/TiggerPlush3.jpg
Minnie Polka Dot Dress
http://www.dressaday.com/081306_Orange
PolkaDotDress4.jpg
 Donald Duck Picture taken by my
roommate Amanda Torres.
 Rest of the Disney World pictures were
taken by me.
