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Decimal Problem Solving

I like to do a lot of problem solving with my students, usually having them work together so that they can model for each other and share/listen to each others' thinking. For the past two days, most of my math classes have been working on "Party Planning," which is the problem pictured here.  Students worked with one or two partners, to come up with combinations of foods that "Reggie" could buy for a party.

I love listening to the kids' conversations as they work on things like this - "No one eats pretzels," "I'd choose candy and chips over pretzels," and so on.

The students had a few important questions for me, though, as they were pretty serious about this planning:  Is this a "regular" party or like a sleep-over party, because the kind of food would depend on how long the party is."  "How big is the container of ice cream?"  "How big is the bag of candy?" And then there were a few other ideas, that made me realize I needed to add some more detail/requirements, like the students who said, "Let's just get 50 bottle of soda!" Or the students who decided that 5 fruit trays would be a good plan (even though Reggie wanted a variety of food items).
Click to download

So, I revised the problem, which you can download, if you'd like. This page is part of a larger product that includes several other problem solving pages, as well as a Footloose task card activity.


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Comments

  1. Katie BunMay 24, 2016 at 8:26 AM

    Any chance you have a key? I'd like to use this as center work as I re-teach some kids...

    ReplyDelete
  2. EMay 24, 2016 at 6:31 PM

    Hi Katie, thanks for your question! I actually don't have key because there are many possible answers. I ended up checking each students combinations to see if they worked. Sorry!

    ReplyDelete

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