Mathematical Minds: A New Approach to Story Problems

This ongoing class will follow the format of a 3-Act Task for mathematical problem-solving and is absolutely packed with great mathematical thinking skills! 

𝐀𝐜𝐭 𝟏: At the beginning of each class, students will be presented with an intriguing, food-themed scenario. Together, we will work to ask questions and develop our own problems for solving, determine what information we need to solve the problem, and make estimates. 
𝐀𝐜𝐭 𝟐:Next, some more information about the scenario will be shared, which we will use to make revisions to our estimates and then work together to solve the problem. 
𝐀𝐜𝐭 𝟑: Students will share solutions, strategies and questions that came up as they worked through their problem-solving. We'll compare our final solutions to our estimates and debrief on our problem-solving and thinking processes, discussing what worked and what didn't.

3-Act Tasks for math are a great way to challenge and extend learners and develop critical thinking skills. Many students will find these problems challenging, others they may find easier. However, my emphasis in this class is always on mathematical thinking and questioning and the process of arriving at an answer rather than on the answer itself. Learners are always encouraged to find more than one way to solve a problem and to explain their thinking to others, which adds an additional layer of challenge for many learners beyond doing calculations. I strive to ensure that all learners are challenged and stretched with every lesson! Students will be guided through the process of creating and solving their own math problems. I strongly believe there is tremendous value in the process of developing these kinds of mathematical thinking skills (asking questions, determining needed information, estimating, revising estimates based on new information, etc.) even if students are not able to arrive at one correct answer at the end of the process, and this is something we will discuss often in class as well.  There is going to be a lot of great learning, discussion, and growing happening here and I hope your learner will join us!

**Ideally, your learner will already know how to multiply and divide multi-digit numbers (ex: 7 x 83) as these operations will be used in many of the problems we work on. However, they do not need to have knowledge of all the content or vocabulary needed as I will make sure they know what they need to be able to solve the problems (for example: It sounds like we're trying to figure out the capacity of the container. Does everyone know what capacity means?) I will always provide guidance and scaffolding where needed to help your learner be successful.***

This class has 20 weeks of unique content before the lessons repeat.  

For the Week of: 

Sept. 2 - Stack of Soda
Content: Multiplication within 1,000

Sept. 9 - The Orange
Content: Measurement of weight

Sept. 16 - Fruit and nut
Content: multiplication and division within 100

Sept. 23 - Packing Sugar
Content: Measurement of volume

Sept. 30  - Tomato Ketchup 
Content: Measurement of liquid capacity

Oct. 7 - Peach Picker
Content: multiplication and division within 100

Oct. 14 - NO CLASS

Oct. 21 - Where’s the Beef
Content: Multiplication and division with numbers in the thousands

Oct. 28-   Nana’s Lemonade
Content: Volume, ratio

Nov. 4 - Krispy Kreme Me
Content: Mult and division with numbers in the thousands

Nov. 11 - Soup DuJour
Content: Liquid capacity

Nov. 18 - Reeses Pieces
Content: multiplication to a product of 100 

Nov. 25 - The Water Boy
Content: Liquid capacity

Dec. 2 - Granny Smith
Content: Measurement, circumference

Dec.  9 - Jumping Jelly Beans
Content: Division

Dec. 16 - The Kool-Aid Kid
Content: Liquid capacity


Please note there is another version of this class for younger learners ages 6-8. You can find a link for that class here:
https://outschool.com/classes/math-is-yummy-a-problem-solving-class-for-mathematical-minds-ages-6-8-wMDTNOOy?usid=nD85Y1ms&signup=true&utm_campaign=share_activity_link