Another puzzle website!

I have posted before about the algebraic thinking mobile puzzles from Solve Me Puzzles.  They are great for increasing our students' understanding of equality, and they give even our youngest students some exposure to algebra concepts.

Solve Me Puzzles has another great puzzle called Who Am I?  These place value puzzles ask students to figure out the value of the number from the clues.  There is some similarity between these puzzles and our Everyday Math place value puzzles.

On both sites, the puzzles progress in difficulty.  I think both puzzle sites could be used in some way with students in 1-5.

There is a third puzzle available on the Solve Me Puzzles menu.  It is called Mystery Grid.  You might have students who enjoy it, too.  It has some similarities to Sudoku puzzles and KenKen puzzles.  (I don't find it quite as much fun as KenKens...)

These puzzles might work well as an opening or closing activity during your day, a partner activity, or a station during math workshop.  They will definitely help build our students reasoning, thinking, and mathematical skills!

EQUALITY is SO IMPORTANT

This online tool is a great option if you don't have access to a concrete tool in your classroom

Research has shown that a strong understanding of the equal sign in elementary school has a positive effect on student math success as they progress through middle and high school.  The standard sits in first grade (1.OA.7), but it is up to all grade levels to provide practice with the importance of the equal sign so that students can see the equal sign not as operational but as relational.

This is an important concept that I find myself working to build in our 1st and 2nd grade students quite often.

We typically begin by using the scale to think about missing addend problems.  The fulcrum of the scale represents the equals sign in the number problem. Because this concept is still difficult for most of them, we use cubes to look at the relationship of the two sides.  We always tell a story to go along with the problem. What do I need to add to 3 to make it be equal to 9?  I also draw it so that they see a representational model.

When we add the 6 weight, the students confirm that their answer was correct. 

After they become pretty proficient at solving the problems within 10, we stretch to equalities between different sums.

We again use cubes to help us make sense of the numbers and write number sentences to match our work.  We explore these problems always with context, and we make sure to write our number sentences with the missing addend in a variety of places. When the missing addend is in the spot directly after the equal sign is when the students tend to struggle the most. (4 + 5 = ___ + 1)

Giving students much time to explore and think about the numbers with the scale and other manipulatives is important.  It will also help them to better understand addition and the facts that go with it.

Here is an Equality dice game you can play, too.

The Math Coach's Corner has a good game for practicing equality with two-digit numbers on this post.

Illustrative Mathematics has some other good tasks that you can do with your students to help build their understanding of the equal sign.

What do you do to help your students truly understand the equal sign?

Algebraic Thinking Puzzles

I am often asked about ways to challenge our students during math workshop.  I believe it is important that we have a variety of problems that we use.  I also don't think we should spend much of our time accelerating content to teach our students things beyond our grade level.  There are many ways we can build their thinking and logic skills by having them look at numbers more flexibly. Building deeper thinking skills will enable them to persevere as they move into more challenging problems in the future. 

I recently came upon this site.  I think it could have many uses in classrooms as low at 1st grade.  Teachers could use some of the puzzles for a whole class think aloud.  They might also choose to have students work in partners to solve the puzzles.  They might print out a few of the puzzles and have students work on them on paper.  They might introduce some individual students to them.

These puzzles offer students opportunities to think algebraically about numbers and to better explore the meaning of equality and balance.  

Solveme puzzles has three levels of problems:  Explorer, Puzzler, and Master.  Problems become progressively more difficult as students move through the levels.  There are some that involve fractions and negative numbers.   I solved all of my problems as a guest, but you might find it beneficial to create accounts for students.

Let me know what you think of this site.  Feel free to share it with a colleague.  Try some of the puzzles yourself--you might find that you enjoy them, too!