Solve Problems Using the Four Operations

10 min

Narrative

The purpose of this Warm-up is to elicit the idea that many different questions could be asked about this situation, which will be useful when students solve problems in a later activity. While students may notice and wonder many things about this situation, the various questions that could be asked about the situation are the important discussion points.

Launch

  • Groups of 2
  • Display the situation.
  • “What do you notice? What do you wonder?”
  • 1 minute: quiet think time
Teacher Instructions
  • “Discuss your thinking with your partner.”
  • 1 minute: partner discussion
  • Share and record responses. 

Student Task

What do you notice? What do you wonder?

A farmer picked some apples.
Some of the apples are packed into boxes and some are not.

Solution Steps (3)
  1. 1
    Identify quantities in the situation
    →Total apples, apples in boxes, apples not in boxes, number of boxes, apples per box
  2. 2
    Recognize missing information
    →Need specific numbers to solve - situation is incomplete
  3. 3
    Generate questions
    →How many apples total? How many boxes? How many per box? How many loose?

Sample Response

Students may notice:
  • We don’t have enough information to solve for anything. 
  • We don’t know how many apples there are. 
  • We don’t know how many boxes were packed.
  • We don’t know how many apples are not in boxes.
Students may wonder:
  • How many apples were there to start with? 
  • How many boxes are there? 
  • How many apples are in each box?
  • How many apples are not in a box?
  • Are all the boxes the same size?
Activity Synthesis (Teacher Notes)
  • “What does it mean that some apples are packed into boxes and some are not?” (Some apples are in groups and some apples are just loose in one big group.)
  • “What questions could we ask about this situation?” (How many apples did the farmer pick? How many boxes had apples in them? How many apples were in each box?)
Standards
Building Toward
  • 3.OA.8·Solve two-step word problems using the four operations. Represent these problems using equations with a letter standing for the unknown quantity. Assess the reasonableness of answers using mental computation and estimation strategies including rounding.
  • 3.OA.D.8·Solve two-step word problems using the four operations. Represent these problems using equations with a letter standing for the unknown quantity. Assess the reasonableness of answers using mental computation and estimation strategies including rounding.<span>This standard is limited to problems posed with whole numbers and having whole-number answers; students should know how to perform operations in the conventional order when there are no parentheses to specify a particular order (Order of Operations).</span>

20 min

15 min