Summary
From dividing up costs with friends to comparing cell phone plans, knowing how to do word problems is a skill that’s useful for life. Luckily, the same basic process–plan, solve, check–can help you out whether you’re aged nine, 19, or 99. To get the right answers, you’ll first plan how to tackle a problem, like maybe using models or visualizations. Then you’ll solve, using variables for unknown quantities. And finally, you’ll check your answer. Easy-peasy, right? Go forth and calculate!
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Teaching resources
Discussion questions
A few questions to talk through after watching Multi-Step Word Problems:
- What is one new thing you learned about multi-step word problems?
- Can you explain it to a partner in your own words?
- Where might you see this in the real world?
- What is one question you still have?
Quick work-a-long
Try it:
- Write one sentence explaining multi-step word problems.
- Draw or give one example of your own.