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Even Problem Solving is child's play!Here is a quick and dirty vid on Problem Solving. Did one take. No edits just let it roll...and then had to cut off the end. This page will have much more on story problems soon. I have to start some where so watch this: Starts with 3x + 2 = 2x + 5 then moves on to 5x + 3 = 4x + 7 and lastly 5x + 3 = 2x + 12 As you can see Problem Solving is EASY when you know how and can visualize it. Here are three stories to go along the symbols above. Joe and John are out of town. Joe is two miles out of town and John is five miles out of town. Joe is trying to catch up to John. Joe is walking three miles an hour and John is walking two miles an hour. How long does it take for Joe to catch John and how far out of town are they when he does? Mary and Jane are having a snow ball fight. Mary has three snow balls and Jane has seven. The decide to make an equal amount of snow balls so they can have a fair fight. Jane makes four per minute and Mary makes five per minute until they have the same amount of snow balls, how many minutes did it take and how many snow balls did they each have? Jan and Dan are making pies. Dan has 12 already made, Jan only has 3. They are going to make an equal amount of pies, and they both make the same amount of pies per batch. Dan has two batches to go and Jan has 5 more batches to go before they are done. How many pies do they make per batch and how many will each have when they are done? Who cares? You do if you can't do simple problems like these and you are going to get graded on it. Here are two little boys aged 4 and 6 setting up to play advanced whats under cup? The rest of this video is a half hour long and can be found on the password protected problem solving page (green forward arrow below). They do several problems starting off easier than this and then moving to this one and beyond. We also do a lot of extra counting just because it's fun. There is a lot more stuff on the password protected problem solving page. Problems with three variables (systems of equations), boat and current problems like this: Neb has canoe and a paddle. He paddles upstream against the current for 24 miles. It takes 6 hours. (He leaves at 8 and gets there at 2.) On the way back the same 24 mile trip only takes 4 hours with the current. (He leaves at 8 gets back at noon.) How fast does Neb paddle in still water? What is the speed of the current? are made obscenely easy. You'll also find those classic water tank problems (constant rate) and problems with ordered pairs. Like this: How fast is the tank filling up and how much water was there to begin with if after two hours three hours there was 11 feet of water in the tank and after five hours there was 17 feet of water in the tank...basically shows how to make the equation from a set of ordered pairs... And soon even more story problems you've come to know and love but might not have understood how to solve easily will be added. Here is a fun short blog post with more examples: Problem Solving Concepts Made Easy!
"It is hard to convince a high-school student that he will encounter a lot of problems more difficult than those of Algebra and Geometry." ~Edgar W. Howe “It is clear that the chief end of mathematical study must be to make the students think.” ~John Wesley Young CHECK BACK OFTEN: MUCH MORE TO COME. Also, be sure to check out my blog, constantly adding posts regarding problem solving, story problems and more...
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