Grades 3-5 Math Problem Solving in Action_ Getting Students to Love Word Problems

Reasoning About Problems ◆ 95

Figure 6.12 Reasoning Problems

Kelly and her 4 friends stopped by the bakery after studying in the

library. They each bought a cupcake. Their names are Kelly, Sue, Mark,

Jamal and Tom. The types of cupcakes were strawberry, vanilla, choco-

late, peach and lemon.

Use these clues to tell who ate which cupcake.

Kelly only likes chocolate.

Sue does not eat fruity cupcakes.

Mark loves anything lemon.

Jamal does not eat berries.

Tom loves berries.

Strawberry Vanilla Chocolate Peach Lemon

Kelly

Sue

Mark

Jamal

To m

Venn Diagrams Are Great Thinking Activities

Venn diagrams also provide a way for students to think about a lot of
different pieces of information. We need to also bring these back into our
routines so that students learn to organize information and then think
about it in clear ways. Students should start out with easy Venn diagrams,
using concrete materials to act out the problems, and then move on to
representational ones with pictures and then just numbers (see Figures 6.13
and 6.14). Students should also work on 3-circle Venn diagrams.

Example 1:

We surveyed 40 students in our school about their pets. Sixteen students

have cats. Twenty-eight students have dogs.

1. If 7 students have both, how many students have neither?


2. How many have either cats or dogs?

our classrooms because they promote logical, step-by-step thinking with
a lot of different information. It is a skill to be able to think this way, and
these types of matrices build that skill (see Figure 6.12).