Monday, October 7, 2013

Molly and Rocco's Doggy Math Problem




Hanging Math on the Math Line!

Math problems are much more interesting and fun to solve 
when they involve real people and relevant situations.

Molly and Rocco love their dogs, Beetle and Bailey.  Yesterday they decided to have a play date and bring along their dogs.  While Beetle and Bailey were playing, Molly and Rocco noticed that their dogs were the same height and almost the same length.  They decided to measure the dogs to see which dog was the longest.  Guess what?  They found out that Molly’s dog was 15 inches long and Rocco’s dog was 19 inches long.  Then Molly and Rocco decided to see how long their dogs would be if they were standing one right behind the other.  Molly said she thought the dogs would be more than 35 inches long and Rocco said he didn’t think they would be more than 35 inches long. 

Molly and Rocco would like their third grade friends to figure out how many inches long the dogs’ length would be if they were standing one right behind the other.

1.     Please solve this problem for Molly and Rocco. 

Show your thinking with words, numbers, models, or equations. 

2.   Write a note to Molly and Rocco telling them how long Beetle and Bailey are when they stand one right behind the other. 

Students solved the problem for Molly and Rocco!
They each wrote a note to Molly and Rocco explaining
their thinking.
They all did a fantastic job showing and explaining
their work.  It was fun to see the variety of ways
for solving this problem!
Some students decomposed numbers in ways that 
made sense to them.  Others used a number line 
and made "jumps" in ways that made sense for them.  
















No comments:

Post a Comment