Thursday, December 10, 2015

5th Grade Math: The Holiday Bonus Division Problem


Next week students will begin the division unit. What will we do?

We'll begin the unit with the holiday bonus project.

Each group of similar ability peers will receive a plastic ziplock bag with a "holiday bonus" of play money and a card and envelopes that show how many family and friends they'll share the money with. Then it will be up to the team to separate the money into even groups.

Once the money is separated they'll create a model online or off of their work. Their model will explain the problem and how they solved it similar to the examples below. This first division day will give me a good idea of what students currently know about division. The next day students will have a chance to share their projects and learning with each other. After that we'll review multiple models of division including the "bucket model," area model, partial quotient, and the traditional algorithm.
A $561 holiday bonus to be divided amongst 13 family and friends.