Solving Problem Solving Problems

Or here's hoping, at least.

Are your kids like mine? I feel like my kids see a word problem, pick out the two numbers, and add them just because reading the problem is soooo muuuuuch liiiiike wooooork. I was trying to come up with a way to help my students tackle word problems that they would be able to carry over to use with any kind of word problem they encounter.

I already have a problem solving strategy pack in my TpT store, but I wanted something that was more versatile and, honestly, I wanted to be able to use it with my students who needed some intervention on bringing those critical reading skills into the math block. I feel like so many of my kids genuinely came into this year believing that you read in reading class, and you do math in math class, and the two never overlap. I've made it my mission to disprove their little theory this year. Bwahahaha! (Just picture me reading that in my best mad scientist cackle.)

Anyway, that's where this problem solving pack comes in. It's worked out so well that you can expect me to make them for every topic.

This set includes two versions of a graphic organizer that my students are using to help them break down word problems.

 

One version of the graphic organizer includes a blank space at the top for the word problem strip to be glued to the sheet. The other doesn't. I am currently using the second version with my students. We started out with the first one last week, and they glued their problems onto the sheet, and then we walked through the steps together in a whole group minilesson. At this point, I have given each student a copy of the second version, which they are keeping in a sheet protector with a vis-a-vis marker in their math binders. The problem of the day is going on the board so that we can go over it together after they have worked the problem. This has become my new way of doing our Problem of the Day/Math Review, and so far, it's working really well.

I've actually gone a step beyond this set with my class. For each problem, I am giving my students time to solve the problem for the day, and then I am posting 4 possible answers and having them use their activotes to choose the correct answer. Before doing this, I had several students who were not solving the problems before choosing an answer, so this has actually helped with that problem as well.

Once I feel confident that all of my students understand the process well enough to use it with any word problem, this activity may go into one of our math centers or I may continue using it the same way. I'll decide that when we get there.

The word problems are on "copy friendly" sheets, allowing you to pick a page and run just a few copies for your whole class. I'm always looking for a way to save on copies!

There are 25 pages of word problems for this topic. The problems are a randomly mixed review, so the multiplication and division problems are mixed throughout the packet. 

A few possible uses for this set might be:

• Intervention groups
• Whole group problem solving lesson
• Homework assignments 
• Math center
• Problem of the Day
• Substitute plans

I'm getting ready to start working on my next set of word problems, and since we're going into review mode (read: testing panic mode) I feel like I need it all and need it now. If you could request one topic for a review set like this, what topic would you pick? Let me know in the comments!

I think mine would be adding and subtracting fractions.