Watermelon Party
By Jasmine Cabanaw
- One hot day, my dad cut a slice of watermelon for me to eat. I counted 13 black and white seeds in the slice. There were more black seeds than white seeds. How many of each kind of seed might there be?
- Tell a story with many parts about different combinations of animals gathered around the watermelon. Draw and act out stories telling about animals arriving and leaving the party.
- Offer students parts of a story to encourage creativity. A math context is provided but there is lots of freedom in which to work in an open-ended manner. Drawings, bar diagrams and number paths can be used to represent thinking:
Make up a story to solve that includes these words and numbers.
12 seeds less 5
Possible solution: I had 12 seeds in my piece of watermelon. My sister had 5 less than me. How many seeds did she have?
or
8 turtles more 6
The bar model is great for illustrating subtraction by comparison.
| Possible solution: 6 turtles arrived at the party. There were already 8 dogs. How many more dogs that turtles. | |
 composing/decomposing/ partitioning suggestions pg. 56
|
|
