What's Your Math Problem!?! Book Study Chapter 3

I am linking up with

Jennifer Smith-Sloane from 4mulaFun

Meg Anderson  from Fourth Grade Studio

Jamie Riggs from MissMathDork

and Jennifer Findley from Teaching to Inspire 5th Grade

for this book study on What's Your Math Problem!?!



 If you missed my previous posts you can find them here:

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
                                         

Chapter 3 - Getting Started Strategies

This chapter focuses on four strategies:

• Restate the problem in your own words

Before restating the problem, Gojak suggests teaching the students to read the problem three times.

1. The first read is to provide a general familiarity with the information in the problem.
2. The second read helps you to put the problem into your own terminology, focusing on the specifics of the problem.
3. The third read helps you reduce the problem to only relevant ideas.

I'm not sure that I agree with this format exactly, but I do like the idea of having them read a problem multiple times.

• Identify wanted, given, and needed information

Gojak emphasizes the need to model this strategy.  She recommends getting students in the habit of recording wanted, needed, and given information so that they will focus on theses areas.

• Identify a subgoal

This strategy is for multi-step problems or problems where the student may not have all of the information readily available in the problem.  They may need to solve something or research something first.

• Select appropriate notation

This strategy shows students how to show their thinking in solving a problem.

This chapter reminded me of a resource that I was given during our unit revision workshop.

 

You can find a printable version of the poster above here.

Ways To Show Multiplication Lesson

I had planned this amazing lesson based on this Pinterest Idea  I had seen awhile ago. Instead of marshmallows, I planned on using Fruit Loops.


Well... my third graders had completely different ideas and hijaked my lesson.  And while their ideas were not as "pretty" as the Pinterest pin - they really involved mathematical thinking on their parts.

Counting his fruit loops in his array. (Love the use of our laundry basket a.k.a. lunch basket for a work surface!)

Hard at work - they decided to draw Jenga multiplication tiles to pick out their math facts.

Close to what I had in mind -multiple ways of showing his thinking!

I love how these kiddos decided to use the Fruit Loops to make the sixes!

I love their word problem!  63 goats!  Future textbook writers for sure!  (Love the improvisation when they ran out of fruit loops.)

And one of my favorites - explaining his thinking in his Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book (this kid carries it EVERWHERE!).

Do your students ever "hijack" your lesson?

How do you get your kiddos to engage in mathematical thinking?