I’m fairly certain I say this about every subject I teach…but math is truly a favorite of mine! It was my favorite subject going through elementary school and I’m definitely “math brained”. Do you like teaching math too, or is it your nemesis? Hopefully these ideas that I’m sharing with you today will make teaching math word problems a little more enjoyable!
Teaching math word problems can be very tricky, especially when text and math equations are involved. Story problems are a great way to help your students understand how to integrate math facts into real world problems, so it’s important that we practice them!
Dissecting Word Problems
When I’m teaching my students how to solve math word problems, we talk about all the important parts of each problem. We circle the numbers and underline important words. We fully dissect the problem before we even start!
Here are the 4 steps we use when working on our story problems:
1. Read through the problem and talk about all of the important components (we do this at least twice)
2. Circle the numbers and underline the important words. We fully dissect the problem before we even start to solve it.
3. Use manipulatives to “act out” the problem. Sometimes real manipulatives, sometimes paper ones.
4. Finally, write the equation and then sum or difference at the bottom.
Subtraction Word Problems
We also take the same approach for subtraction word problems. This time though, we start with the total number and take objects away. When using the paper manipulatives, we glue the total down, then cross off the ones we want to take away.
Missing Addends
You can also introduce your students to missing addends math word problems. These are definitely a challenge! When we dissect these problems, we put a box around the “unknown number,” in this case “some”. After gluing down the 6 plants, we use our counting on strategy and glue down more plants until we reach 10. Then we put a box around the plants to show how many we added.
Finally, I have my students circle or put a box around the missing addend in their equations. This really helps them to see how they’re all connected. We also talk about how our answers to a math word problem won’t always be the total.
Math Word Problems Center
One of my favorite things to do with math word problems is to make class books. You can check them out {here} in a realllly old Pre-Printerest post 😉
These would also be great to put in sheet protectors and stick in a math tub. Your students can practice story problems over and over again!
If you’re interested in using these story problems in your classroom, you can check them out in my shop! The Addition & Subtraction Story Problems Bundle includes story problems that can be used throughout the whole year! They are organized by season so you can choose which ones you want your students to work on at any given time of the year.
