First students independently solved a multi-step word problem. Then they got into teams and shared their strategies for solving. One teammate stayed with the teams work, while the rest of the team took a walk to listen to the other groups share their strategies. Once back with their original team, the strategies of the other teams were shared with the teammate who remained with their work. Next, teams decided on which strategy solved the problem efficiently AND effectively. During the presentations we saw that each team chose that the teacher in the problem needed 28 boxes with a remainder of 5. As a class, we got 257 cubes to represent the books. Students worked to sort the cubes into 9 groups (each box held 9 books). Seeing the visual of the remaining cubes helped the students realize that the remaining cubes, aka books, could not be forgotten about. The 5 leftover cubes had to be put in a box, even though the last box wouldn't be full. This problem required math skills and common sense.
The problem:
Mrs. Lock is packing up books
in the library for the summer. She has 218 fiction books and 39 non-fiction
books to pack. How many boxes will she need if each box holds 9 books? Write your
final equation and answer on the line. Label.
