"Dino-riffic" Combinations of Five...and Freebie Link

Your every day, ordinary word problems are sooo prehistoric. We're living in the Common Core era now, so it's time to make sure our little thinkers can solve AND show, prove, explain, and extend. They have to leave big tracks of their thinking, right? Here's a sample word problem my smart kids worked on this week:

First we circled the numbers and put a box around the question. Next we used dinosaur manipulatives to act out the problem. 

Next we made a class chart that looked like this.

My students had some amazing math thinking to share. Here are some of their comments.

"The pattern goes 1, 2, 3, 4, and then 4, 3, 2, 1."

"It looks like a box."

"It looks like a staircase."

"Every time there is a 1, there is a 4. Every time there is a 2, there is a 3."

"When there are more purple dinosaurs, there are less green dinosaurs."

"When a purple dino comes in, a green one has to go out."

The next day, the students made their own charts. On the front of the page, they wrote something about the chart. On the back, they glued their manipulatives. 

Finally, we worked together to make our tables.

If you'd like to see more problems like this one, you can check out my "Think, Show, SOLVE!" series on TPT or TN.

Here is a freebie just for you!