HOW MANY WAYS CAN YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM?

In first grade there is always more than one way to solve a problem.  It's fun to see how many different ways we can arrive at the same answer.  Kids are so clever!

After watching this video of the super cool car race, we are left wondering how much further the brown car traveled than the yellow car.  However, we need to know how far each car went individually in order to solve the mystery.

That helps! Check out the ways we solved what looks like just a subtraction problem.

Count the cubes in the middle.  Cross them off so you don't double count!  Start at 74 and stop when you get to 109.  

Look for chunks.  There are 6 blue, 10 green, 10 brown, and 9 yellow.  Add them up.  10+10 is 20.  9+6 is 15.  20+15 is 35.  

Look for chunks and make a friendly group of 10.  Same as above, but this time split apart the 6 to make another 10.

Do a subtraction problem.  Draw a picture with quick tens and ones.  Then cross off all the ones that both cars traveled.  

Count on from the lower number.  Draw quick tens and then use another color to get to the bigger number.

Count on from the lower number, but use the arrow way.  Add until you get friendly numbers to work with, like groups of 10.

Count on from the lower number, but add tens and ones separately.  How many tens to get to 100?  How many ones to get to 9?

These are all methods REALLY used by first graders in solving this problem.  So cool!
(now we're working on handwriting and organizing our work so it's legible enough to share...hehe)