Blast from the Past - Story Problems

I'm working on a series of blog posts (hint: think Christmas count down) and as I did some researching, I came across this post. For background, I was home recuperating from my second knee replacement surgery in December, 2010 and my sub (and former student teacher) sent me an email to keep me updated on my class.

I'd totally forgotten this, and it has nothing to do with horses, but it made me laugh and I decided to share it with you all. 

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Turn About is Fair Play (written December 24, 2010)

When teaching Math, I often make up stories about my family or a couple of students, incorporating them into story problems or whatever. It keeps the kids' attention, lightens the "Math mood" and makes the subject a bit more fun. My sub sent me the following email yesterday morning. Looks like the kiddos turned the tables on me! (Me? Playing Twister?? Eating M&Ms, yes, but NO Twister!!)

Mrs. I,
For a fun math activity on Monday, I assigned the entire class the project of creating 3 of their own story problems related to what we have been studying in math since both groups have stuggled with story problems. It ended up being a great activity and a few of them wrote some about you that might give you a laugh... :)

Emma:
Rudolph and Mrs. I. were playing with dice. There was one dice numbered 1-6. What is the probability of rolling an even number?

Ellen:
Mrs. I. was playing Twister. There were 20 circles on the mat all together. If 2 1/3 of the circles were red, 1 4/6 of the circles were blue, and 5 2/4 of the circles were yellow, what fraction of the circles were green?

Kamryn:
Mrs. I. was playing Twister. 1/4 of the time she spun yellow, 1/3 of the time she spun blue, and 2/8 of the time she spun green. What fraction of the time did she spin red?

Grace:
Mrs. I. set out 8 2/3 bowls of red M&Ms for her Christmas party. Before the party started, Mrs. I. ate 2 1/2 bowls of M&Ms. After the party was over, another 4 2/5 bowls of M&Ms had been eaten. How many bowls of M&Ms are left?

Just thought I'd share with you! :)

Jessica Windsor 

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Some of my students playing Twister during an indoor recess. They LOVED that game! (And it was pretty fun to watch them play, too.)

Sometimes I really miss teaching.