Today we did a journal problem that can sometimes trip up some of the students. Here is the problem:
Four friends found a bag with 18 marbles in it on the playground. They told Lisa, the Head Teacher, about it. She told them that if no one claimed the marbles in 2 weeks they could keep them. No one claimed the marbles. How can the friends share the marbles fairly? Use numbers, words, and/or pictures to explain your answer. Be sure you show what happens to all 18 marbles. Remember that in real world math, things do not always work out neatly and evenly.
One of the students called out after I read the problem, "Gee that's hard." One quickly wrote this solution: 18 (divided by) 6 = 3. When I asked him how that related to the numbers in the problem, he said, "Oops!" and went back to work. Things got pretty quiet as all the others settled down to work. Everyone was able to come up with a solution that accounted for all the marbles. Several suggested giving the extra two marbles to Lisa. One suggested giving them to two other friends. A couple needed a nudge to make their solutions clear. A lot of them used diagrams to show clearly their results. On Monday we will share solutions.
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