My Crew of Problem Solvers!

When planning our word problem unit I knew that it was time to get creative.  My kiddos have been solving word problems since the beginning of the year, but we are in the midst of a two-week unit to really dig deep into word problems.  We are focusing on locating important details, finding unnecessary info, and completing multi-step problems.  These pesky word problems can get the best of my kiddos if we aren’t careful! 
I decided to do a bit of a “Crew” theme to kick our week off.  My class became a crew of problem solvers that had to work together to conquer difficult tasks!  I went to Amazon and bought a few construction-themed items to turn up the excitement level.  I bought hats, cones, caution tape, a road, and decor.
When my kiddos walked into the room they saw this…
Sidenote— we love those number charts to 1,000 from Really Good Stuff!  My teammate bought them over the summer and I had to do he same!
I used posters from my Workin’ On Word Problem unit and taped them onto our caution cones!  This really helped my kiddos to implement the steps to solving their problems.
We started each day solving a word problem together.  I displayed one on our projector/white-board and my kiddos either used math spirals or white-boards to show their work.
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I mean, seriously, how cute are they??!!
 Something about those hats really helped up the level of concentration!
After about three days of working together, I sent my students on a word problem hunt.  These problems are from my word problem unit... I just taped them to a cone for a little more fun!  I used the addition and subtraction word problems here… just used a mix of 4 and 4 🙂 0e984 img 0111
 And, my little crew went around to each problem to solve!  
We still have a ways to go, but for the most part my students are starting to focus a little more, pay closer attention to the question being asked, and don’t dread doing word problems each day!  I’d say that is a success!!!
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Hi, I'm Amy

Hey, y’all! My name is Amy Lemons and I am passionate about providing students with both engaging and effective standards-based Math and ELA lessons.

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8 Responses

  1. Love it! I am using your word problem pack right now. Thank you so much! It has problems they can understand and a variety that applies to the standards! 🙂

  2. This is such a phenomenal and needed post! My 4th graders are struggling through multiplication/division word problems right now. My classroom of 29 that has 20 BOYS will love this! Thanks for the Amazon links!