Math Blog 3

I have not gotten a chance to view a new math lesson during my placement yet but I have another example of the "Big 4" opener activity the class has been doing. I wanted to concentrate on the bottom two problems that are multiple step word problems. The bottom left problem went like this: two friends went to the movie theater and two bags of popcorn for $7.50 each, a soda for $3.50 and a bag of candy for $3.25. If they had $3.50 left after getting change, how much money did they have when they got to the movies. The bottom right problem asked: If Sally goes to the CD store and buys three CDs for $15.88 each and pays with a $50 bill how much money will she get in change? 

This student demonstrates that she is able to get to the correct answer and show her work of how she got to the answer. In the bottom left word problem, she added all of the things bought at the movie theater and understood that she need to add the change the person got in order to get the full amount of money they had before buying things at the movies. As well, the second problem she adds the CDs together the correct amount and subtracts it from the total amount of money she paid with.

I anticipated that some students might get confused on the first problem on how to get the full amount. Some students might think to subtract the change ($3.50) instead of add it to the total amount because in the word problem it explains how the change was the amount left over after spending money. As well, I anticipated that the student would organize the way she added the different things bought at the movies. She grouped together the things bought, got a total, and then added the change left over to get her end answer.

The next step I would ask this student is to have her solve both of these problems another way. For example, the second question could be solved by multiplying $15.88 x 3 to get the amount of money three CDs cost instead of adding them all together. I would also have her explain and write out the alternative way to solve the problems on the board and ask if any other students solved the problem this way. Like I said before, I like how my MT has each student walk through how they solved each problem so the other students understand their reasoning behind how they got that answer. Another way to advance her thinking is to have the student create their own word problem similar to these and find the answer and then teach it to the rest of the class. They can share their word problem and ask students to solve it and go over how they solve the problem.