Or maybe it’s Spanish or Chinese or Pig-Latin, but today I felt like I was definitely not speaking English to my kiddos during math.  Meaning no one understood what I was trying to explain, and many kids ended up more confused than when we first started.  WHAT?  It’s not like I’m new at this, nor to the topic.  We were even working on a problem that I made up!  Needless to say, we all wanted to throw in the towel, or rip up our papers and start over.  Or something else that you shouldn’t do when you’re frustrated.  And no, in case you’re wondering–we didn’t.  But we did put the problem away until tomorrow when we’re fresh and can tackle it again.  And I am already armed with a different plan for how to address it, but am hoping you can help me, too!  (And by the way, after how fabulous the first round of problems-with-posters went the other day, this was all the more mind boggling!)

Ok, so I’m hoping that you can help me figure out what might be making my friends so confused.  Here is the problem that we were working on yesterday and today:

This problem is 1) based on a real-life problem, 2) uses math skills we already have (or at least that are not new!), and 3) really just focuses on making sure they use clear and concise notation to record their solution and thoughts.

Part 2

PLEASE give me feedback on parts you see that may  have tripped them up.  After working on it for two days, I see a couple of things, but I really expected this to be a rather simple fraction problem; the difficulties they were having were not ones I had anticipated.  My hope was they could focus on the poster part, as a prep for how they’d answer questions as we start testing next week.  Instead, now they’re all convinced that math is hard and confusing.  Pretty much a teacher fail, huh? 😦

Thoughts?  Oh, and I guess it’s a given that I want you to be nice.  Truthful, but nice, please. 🙂  And maybe you could even tell me what you think the answer is.  That might help me see if the problem reads the way I intended it to.  THANK YOU, FRIENDS!