Frog Riddles

It's a new year and a new math group. Some of the students were in my language group last year. A couple are new to our class. Others I know as they were in Sky last year, though not in one of my small groups. As I often do, I have chosen an early activity from Marilyn Burn's and Bonnie Tank's A Collection of Math Lessons from Grades 1 through 3. Basing my lesson on the chapter on "Riddles with Color Tiles," I do Frog Riddles. First students use frog counters in four colors to come up with solutions to clues I give about what combination of frog counters are in a bag I have. They work in groups of two (generated by drawing a colored cube from a box). After we do a couple of riddles and talk about the process, each group is asked to come up with their own riddle of at least 4 clues. Each clue should move the solver closer to the solution, and the solver should be able to get the solution by the last clue. It takes some thought, logic, and planning to develop a riddle. After each group completed a riddle, we exchanged bags and clues and tested each others' riddles. Some were returned to the pairs that developed them for additional clues or clearer clues. Each partnership ended up with a successful riddle.