Group 1 & 4 both had problem solving questions to work on today but since they are quite new to it, it was more of an introduction on how to decode the question (what is it asking us to do?).
We also discussed the rules of the group - each member needs to ask questions of each other and use the knowledge of the group before they can ask the teacher. This teaches the students to critically examine their own thinking and helps students to cosolidate learning and learn from each other. Here is the work from today.
As you can see they made a great start : )
Group 1 (Mya, Ripeka, Michael, Sacred & Heseti)
A Prey Mantis crawled in while we were working which was perfect for the group as they could check the number of legs and add it into the solution to their problem!
Group 4 (Losana, Andre and Giovanni)
They spent a lot of time just trying to work out what the question was asking us by underlining and re-reading. It took them a little while but they got there in the end so they only just started on their problem which can be answered in many different ways. Below they began by grouping and using repeated addition. We will look at faster ways to answer this type of problem when they have run out of their own ideas. With more practice they will be unstoppable :
)
UPDATE: They solved it! check out the second photo.
The question was "In the fruit room there are some apples left over. Carol needs to share these apples out amongst three classes with eighteen students in each class. How many apples does Carol start with?
