October 2011

Mathematical Thinking

Barb Stack Grade Six Math Teacher Moorhead Public Schools Moorhead, MN bstack@moorhead.k12.mn.us

Cheryl Keenan Grade Six Math Teacher (Retired) cheryllsk@cableone.net

The Five Stages of Singapore Bar Model Development

Concrete

Pictorial

Abstract

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Stage 1: Children Draw Objects

Sally has 2 bears bears. Her mom gives her one more bear. How many bears does Sally have now ?

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Stage 3. Dots Replace Objects Arrows Appear

Peter P t picked i k d th three fl flowers. All Ally picked i k dt two flowers. How many flowers did the children pick?

Stage 4: Numbers Replace Dots

Jimmy has 6 toy cars. His brother gives him 3 more cars. How many toy cars does Jimmy have now?

6
?

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Stage 5: Numbers Move Outside of the Bars and Bars are Labeled
Juan has 36 baseball cards. Sue has 15 baseball cards. How many more cards does Juan have than Sue?

36 Juans Juan s

?
Sues 15

Difficult Missing Start Problems

Allys sister, Lee, gave her 7 chocolate kisses. Now, Ally has 12 chocolate kisses. How many kisses did Ally have before her sister gave her the 7?

12 7
?

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Compare and Equalize Problems

Mias class sold 128 rolls of gift wrap. This is 21 more rolls than Makotos class sold sold. How many rolls of gift wrap did Makotos class sell?

Mias class Makotos class

128

21
?

1. Jims Car
Jim had $67 in his pocket k t after ft he h bought a radio controlled car. He went to the store with $142. How much did Jim spend on the car?
142 67 ?

142 67 = ? 67 + ? = 142 ? + 67 = 142

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2. T T-ball
A group of 87 children hild attend tt d a T-ball game. There are 32 more adults at the game than children. What is the total attendance for the T-ball game?
87 C A 87+87 + 32 2(87) + 32 32

3. Shell Collecting
Rosa has 336 R shells. h ll Sh She k keeps 72 shells and F shares the remaining shells evenly between 6 friends. How many 336 shells does each 264 friend receive?
336 72

72 = 264 6 = 44

Facilitates multi-step thinking

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4. Computer Purchase
?

Sara buys S b a printer i t for $120. She buys a computer that costs 4 times as much as the printer. What is the cost of the entire purchase?

C P $120

c=4xp c = 4 x $120 = 480 c + p = 120 + 480 = $600

Reasoning with a Bar Model

Together the girls spent $250. Maria spent 2/3 what Jenny did did. How much did each girl spend? Jenny 250 Maria
5 units = $250 1 unit = $250 5 = $50 3 units = 3 x $50 = $150 2 units = 2 x $50 = $100 Jenny spent $150. Maria spent $100

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Your Turn
Work with someone at your table to try to represent all 4 problems with the bar model, and then solve.
Start with your focus problem first. Remember that the bar model will NOT solve the problem for you you, but it will help you to represent the problem and decide which solution strategy will be most appropriate. Be ready to share!

Buying Costumes
1. Melissa is buying two costumes. One costs $6 95 and the other $8 $6.95 $8.95. 95 How much change will she get from $20?

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Trick or Treating
2. Robin trick or treated at 36 houses, which is 12 less than Kathy but twice as many as Sandy. How many houses did each girl visit?

Halloween Candy
3. Tommy has four times as many pieces of candy d as Bill Billy and dh half lf as many as E Emily. il Together the three children have 676 pieces of Halloween candy. How many more pieces of candy does Emily have than Billy?

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Spider Rings
4. There are 3 times as many orange spider rings than black spider rings in Matthews Matthew s collection. If there are 3642 orange spider rings, how many black spider rings are there? How many spider rings are there altogether?

Benefits to Bar Models

Help focus students on comprehension of the problems situation, rather than just finding numbers to crunch or just looking for an isolated key word or phrase. Shows explicitly the problem structure along with the known and unknown quantities Visual tool to help students determine the operation needed to solve

10

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Additional Resources

AVMR - Math Recovery

11

Ten Principles of Thinking Mathematics

AFT Educational Research and Dissemination Program 1993,2003

1.) Build from intuitive knowledge. 2.) Establish a strong number sense through counting, estimation, mental computation skills, and use of benchmarks. 3.) Base instruction on situational story problems. 4.) Use manipulatives and other representations to represent problem situations; then link concrete to symbolic. 5.) Require students to describe and justify their mathematical thinking. 6.) Accept multiple correct solutions and when appropriate more than one answer. 7.) Balance conceptual and procedural learning. 8.) Use a variety of teaching strategies. 9.) Use ongoing assessment to guide instruction. 10.) Adjust the curriculum timeline.