Solving Word Problems

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Solving Word Problems

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• Word Problems scare me!

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• Word Problems make me nervous!

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• Word Problems?
• I just skip them!

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Dont Worry!

• With just 4 easy steps, you can become
• a Word Problem Whiz!

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Step 1

• UNDERSTAND the problem.
• What are you trying to figure out?
• Heres an example

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• Yesterday, Alex saw 6 birds in his backyard.
  Today, he saw 3 times as many as yesterday. How
  many birds did he see in all?
• In this problem, what are you trying to figure
  out?

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If you said

• How many birds did Alex see in all? then
• Youre right!

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Step 2

• Get a PLAN.
• How will you answer the question?
• Should you ADD,SUBTRACT, MULTIPLY, OR DIVIDE?

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Look for clues.

• Here are some CLUE WORDS that will help you
  decide what to do.

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Addition Clue Words

• in all
• altogether
• sum
• total

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Subtraction Clue Words

• how many more
• how many are left
• difference

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Multiplication Clue Words

• times
• product of
• multiplied by
• by (dimension)

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Division Clue Words

• quotient of
• divided by
• half for a fraction
• as much
• Split
• separated
• cut up
• parts
• sharing something equally

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Lets look at the example again.

• Yesterday, Alex saw 6 birds in his backyard.
  Today, he saw 3 times as many as yesterday. How
  many birds did he see in all?
• Do you see any CLUE WORDS?

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If you said

• three times and in all then
• Youre right!

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• The words three times tell us that we should
  multiply!
• The words in all tell us that we should ADD!
• Now that we UNDERSTAND the problem, and have a
  PLAN, were ready for the next step!

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Step 3

• SOLVE it!
• Write a number sentence using the information in
  the problem, and

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• Work it out!

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Give it a try!

• Yesterday, Alex saw 6 birds in his backyard.
  Today, he saw 3 times as many as yesterday. How
  many birds did he see in all?
• Write a number sentence and SOLVE it.

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If you wrote

• 6 (3 x 6) 24 then
• Youre right!

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Step 4

• LOOK BACK.
• Does your answer fit the question?

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• We had to find out how many birds Alex saw in
  all.
• First we had to multiply 6 by 3 to tell us how
  many he saw today. Then we added the number he
  saw yesterday to the number he saw today.

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• Our answer was Alex saw 24 birds in all.
• It makes sense!

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We did it!

• We are Word Problem Whizzes!

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Here are the steps once more

• Step 1 UNDERSTAND the problem.
• Step 2 Get a PLAN.
• Step 3 SOLVE it!
• Step 4 LOOK BACK.

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Ready for some more practice?

• http//www.mathplayground.com/gsmbegin.html
• http//www.mathplayground.com/mathhoops_Z1.html

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Have more time?

• http//www.mathplayground.com/wordproblems.html

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Lets see if you can pick out the clue words!

• http//www.thatquiz.org/tq/practicetest?8ydrp8w15r
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