Word Problems Amy Howland

#1 If it takes 3 eggs to make a cake. How many cakes can you make with 37 eggs?

#2 Tess went to a garage sale to buy chairs. Each chair cost 15 dollars. How much money did Ellen spend for the 12 chairs she bought? $15

#3 James is running a marathon. He can run 4 miles in an hour. How long will it take him to run 26 miles?

#4 Jane buys an apple for $0.75 and pays with a $5.00 bill. How much change will she get?

#5 You walk 3/10 of a mile to your friend’s house, and then 5/10 of a mile to school. How far did you walk altogether?

Reflection For my word problems, I had two fourth grade students answer them. I had designed the word problems at a fourth grade level because I knew that I would be observing in a fourth grade class. I had one boy, Kian, and one girl, Amelia, answer the word problems. Both students took about 10 minutes to complete the five word problems. Overall, both students used mental math for the majority of the problems and answered them all right. Both Kian and Amelia used the same methods to find the answers to 4 out of 5 problems. The first problem was: If it takes 3 eggs to make a cake. How many cakes can you make with 37 eggs. Amelia used tally marks to figure out the answer. Kian used division to answer the problem. Another interesting point is that both Kian and Amelia were able to solve the word problem with fractions without showing any work, they used mental math. However, this was not surprising to me because they had been learning about fractions for weeks now. Another interesting thing I observed as the two students completed the problems was that Kian made sure to answer every question with a full sentence. After the students completed the problems, I realized that I could have made them a little harder or even done 5th grade level problems.

I also had my 18 year old brother complete the word problems I also had my 18 year old brother complete the word problems. My brother had taken very high math in high school, so these problems were very easy for him. He got them all correct. The one thing that I noticed he did was reduce the fraction in the last problem, the 4th graders did not do this. As he was working on the problems, my mom was sitting there and I said "Mom, do you want to try them?" She promptly responded with a "No, that first problem is already giving me anxiety." I have a feeling that for people who are not accustomed to having to solve word problems or were taught a very specific/rigid way when they were young have a fear of word problems. My little brother is very math smart and can analyze the problem, while my mom just runs from word problems. It was very interesting to see the 4th graders eagerness to help me with my assignment versus my brothers slight reluctance that I was asking him to do math outside of school versus my mothers total fear of word problems.