Students were told that, when they multiply two numbers together, the product is 30 less than one of the multipliers. Off they went to random groups to explore the problem!
Some groups needed more nudges, but others spotted some patterns right away. It kept them busy and engaged for about 20-25 minutes before we moved on to CYU questions.
First day back from Spring Break! We created a list of twelve of our favourite ice cream flavours, and then students were asked to find the total possible number of combinations of 2 scoop cones. Two scoops of the same flavour were allowed, and each combination counted once (ex/ 1 chocolate topped by 1 vanilla was considered the same as 1 vanilla topped by 1 chocolate).
There were lots of different answers at first (ranging from 68 to 144) with lots of great reasoning given. I encouraged groups to use manipulatives. Some groups were asked to start exploring 3 cone combos too!
We had some extra time, so we looked at different ways of solving 3.75 รท 0.75 that weren’t the algorithm. A few different approaches were shared – yay!
I’m a big fan of checking out Aleda Klassen’s Twitter posts about what her #mth1w class is doing. I’m going to try to capture ours in a similar way here. Maybe I’ll be more consistent?
We started out reviewing addition of integers by trying these Kakuro puzzles. Lots of engagement!
We followed this up by me modeling Multiplication of integers using a combo of Nat Banting’s bucket of zero and hot/cold cubes activities. Students seemed to really connect with content. Why have I never started with models for this before? Oh, because models are often less familiar to me. Must keep working to fix!
We had a few more minutes, during which students added notes to their future forgetful selves.
Notes for my future forgetful self 