Story problems

In math we have been working on story problems. We have worked on problems using a variety of techniques. In this photo the children drew a picture and then we wrote the numerical problem (4+4+1=9). Other times, I wrote a word sentence on the board and the children figured out how to write it with math symbols. The children did work sheets in which they had to solve picture and word problems and then drew their own pictures and problems on the reverse side of the sheet. They also had real life problems to solve for instance, we have 3 tables in the room and I put a chair at each table. I asked the children to figure out how many more chairs we needed to have enough for each child (8 children). They came up with several ways to solve the problem: "you would need 5 because 3+5=8" "you could put put 2 more chairs at 2 tables and one more at the other"(3+2+2+1=8), "you could have 3 chairs at one table, 2 chairs at the other table, and 3 chairs at the other table" (3+2+3=8) and I introduced:"if you have 8 children and there are 3 chairs, you can subtract, 8-3=5.

These exercises help children understand there are practical applications to math and that their is more than one way to solve a problem.