Dear Families,
This week your students started working on visualizing, retelling, and solving story problems. This is very challenging but important work as they develop number sense and have to decide whether to combine, take away, or compare numbers.
Sometimes students will have story problems to solve at home. When they do, I suggest following the same routine we use in school. It is an important part of the Investigations curriculum.
Source: Investigations - In Number, Data, and Space
1. Read students the story problem. Encourage them to visualize the story (like a movie in their brain).
2. Ask your child to retell you the story problem in his or her own words.
3. Ask students whether they think the number they end with will be more or less than the number they start with.
4. Encourage students to solve the problem however makes sense to them, using whatever math tools they have. We use counters, cubes, and pencils at school but use whatever makes sense!
Below are some examples of students who showed their thinking or shared their thinking with the class.
This week your students started working on visualizing, retelling, and solving story problems. This is very challenging but important work as they develop number sense and have to decide whether to combine, take away, or compare numbers.
Sometimes students will have story problems to solve at home. When they do, I suggest following the same routine we use in school. It is an important part of the Investigations curriculum.
Source: Investigations - In Number, Data, and Space
1. Read students the story problem. Encourage them to visualize the story (like a movie in their brain).
2. Ask your child to retell you the story problem in his or her own words.
3. Ask students whether they think the number they end with will be more or less than the number they start with.
4. Encourage students to solve the problem however makes sense to them, using whatever math tools they have. We use counters, cubes, and pencils at school but use whatever makes sense!
Below are some examples of students who showed their thinking or shared their thinking with the class.