Solving Word Problems with Hands-On Equation Models

We started late again today.... the ice has been something else.  It was 20 degrees last night....

However, we were able to have normal classes today, well, pretty much.  I was very excited to get to connect our Hands-On Equation models to word problems!  

I spend the entire school year giving my students strategies that they can use to help them solve problems.  Very few things make any 5th grader happy to have to solve a word problem.  I am not saying that they are now thrilled to meet up with a problem with more than 10 words to it, however, they are becoming more equipped to solve these problems through a variety of models.

We have worked with

• Open Number Line models
• Strip Diagram models

and today we worked with (for lack of a better name)

• Algebra models (pawns and cubes)

I was very pleased with their reaction to seeing how a word problem could be broken down into a model that they are comfortable using.  We did 9 problems as our introduction today and will work with additional problems tomorrow.

I made a video of the introduction to our lesson today.  You can view it at Solving Word Problems with Algebra Models to see how turning the words into a visual model helped break the idea that word problems are "hard".

Also, if you would like to see the types of questions (mostly words problems) your 5th grader will have to solve (in 4 hours) the day of our Math STAAR, please visit the TEA website.  Choose the Grade 5, 2013 Mathematics link.

HOMEWORK:  Countdown, p. 7