standard_description: Use variables to represent numbers and write expressions when solving a real-world or mathematical problem; understand that a variable can represent an unknown number, or, depending on the purpose at hand, any number in a specified set.
problem_activity: Activity
This activity is a continuation of the previous one. Students match each situation from the previous activity with an equation, solve the equation by any method that makes sense to them, and interpret the meaning of the solution. Students are still using any method that makes sense to them to reason about a solution. In later lessons, a hanger diagram representation will be used to justify more efficient methods for solving.
For each equation, monitor for a student using their diagram to reason about the solution and a student using the structure of the equation to reason about the solution.
Launch
Keep students in the same groups. 5 minutes to work individually or with a partner, followed by a whole-class discussion.
Engagement: Develop Effort and Persistence.
Encourage and support opportunities for peer interactions. Prior to the whole-class discussion, invite students to share their work with a partner. Display sentence frames to support student conversation such as “To find the solution, first, I _____ because...”, “I made this match because I noticed...”, “Why did you...?”, or “I agree/disagree because…”
Supports accessibility for: Language; Social-emotional skills
Speaking, Representing: MLR2 Collect and Display.
As students share their ideas about how the equations match the situations, listen for and collect students’ description of the situation (e.g., “5 gift bags,
\(x\)
pencils, adds 3 more, 20 pencils”) with the corresponding equation. Remind students to borrow language from the displayed examples while describing what each solution tells about the situation, after the matching is complete. This will help students make connection between language, diagrams, and equations.
Design Principle(s): Support sense-making; Maximize meta-awareness
Student Facing
Each situation in the previous activity is represented by one of the equations.
\((x+3) \boldcdot 5 = 20\)
\(3(x+5)=20\)
Match each situation to an equation.
Find the solution to each equation. Use your diagrams to help you reason.
What does each solution tell you about its situation?
Student Response
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Student Facing
Are you ready for more?
Han, his sister, his dad, and his grandmother step onto a crowded bus with only 3 open seats for a 42-minute ride. They decide Han’s grandmother should sit for the entire ride. Han, his sister, and his dad take turns sitting in the remaining two seats, and Han’s dad sits 1.5 times as long as both Han and his sister. How many minutes did each one spend sitting?
Student Response
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Activity Synthesis
For each equation, ask one student who reasoned with the diagram and one who reasoned only about the equation to explain their solutions. Display the diagram and the equation side by side, drawing connections between the two representations. If no students bring up one or both of these approaches, demonstrate the maneuvers on a diagram side by side with the maneuvers on the corresponding equation. For example, “I divided the number of gift bags by 5, leaving me with 4 pencils per gift bag. Since Tyler added 3 pencils to each gift bag, there must have been 1 pencil in each gift bag to start,” can be shown on a tape diagram and on a corresponding equation. It is not necessary to invoke the more abstract language of “doing the same thing to each side” of an equation yet.


aligns: no