Last week when I visited my placement it was the 100th day of school. This meant that the majority of the activities throughout the day were planned around the number 100. In my class The students had to come up with 100 different math problems that equaled 100. They were allowed to use addition or subtraction. At first this was easy for the students but after a while this became a difficult challenge for some because they were not allowed to repeat any math problems. The students would raise their hand and if the teacher approved their math problem they got to write it on a card and stick it on the display wall in the hall. This math task really made students think. This helped them realize that there are a variety of different ways to make 100. Also as they started to run out of addition problems the teacher asked them to start making addition problems with three numbers rather than two. This allowed more advanced students to practice their skills and not become bored with problems such as 50 +50. While completing this task multiple strategies were used. Some students used guess and check which meant they shouted out random math facts and hoped that the teacher said that it equaled 100. Other students used their time lines and counted up from different numbers. Some students counted on their fingers. Once the class got closer to completing 100 problems the teacher asked them to think of it in terms of money. The students were then allowed to write that 4 quarters equaled 100 or any variety of coins. The students that were able to think outside the box and add groups of 3 or 4 numbers together to get the answer showed that they were at a higher level of math. Many students raised their hand and stated math problems that had already been said multiple times. This showed that the students understand addition but maybe they are not challenging themselves to think of more difficult problems. The students overall really enjoyed this activity and were very excited when they reached 100 problems.
This is an interesting task...The key question for you to think about is what are the different ways that you would want to connect these different representations? Specifically, there are many different ways to make 100...what are the different ways that you would want to compare? What do you think this leads the students to think about?
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