Last week I wrote briefly about our math journals. Today, I have another word problem freebie. They are reindeer themed word problems. Click here to grab them. I think that I mentioned that we do math journal almost every day. In them, I ask students to draw a picture that shows the story problem and then I ask them to write their answer and circle it. I choose 3 or 4 to share using my document camera at the end of journal time. I show the student work and ask him/her to share what they did. We go through the word problem and I ask the students if they can see the different parts represented. Then I ask the student to show how they counted to get their answer and we look for their answer circled on the paper. In the last few weeks, as I've been introducing number bonds with the students and number sentences, I've asked students to try it out in their math journals. I've asked them to try to write the number sentence that matches the word problem. Some are getting it, and some are not, some are trying it out and some are still uncomfortable with the idea, but we're sharing and they are definitely interested in those symbols and trying to "read" the number sentence. These additon problems have been straigh Join Result Unknown problems.
This week I am going to use the number bonds focus on idea of the missing addend. I am going to use my Holiday Number Bonds and then I am going to give them some Join Change Unknown problems in their math journals. It should challenge them and make for some great discussions!
