Maths

 W.A.L.T: Problem solve equations involving algebra.

Last week we were learning about algebra. Since we had been learning about algebra one of our maths tasks was to do problem solving around algebra in our maths books. Here is one of the questions and how I worked it out:

Tia and Tom are twins. Tia saves and Tom spends. Tom finds $20 note on a Sunday evening and spends $2 a day starting on Monday. Coincidentally, Tia starts work on Monday and gets $2.50 a day.                  How long will it be before Tia has more money than Tom?

I figured if I drew a graph with the amount of money they had at the beginning and kept taking $2 from Tom and adding $2.50 to Tia then I would be able to figure out the answer. It looked similar to this.

      Tia               Tom

     $0                   $20

    $2.50               $18

   $5.00                $16

   $7.50                $14 

   $10.00              $12

   $12.50              $10

It took 5 days for Tia to have more money than Tom.

I enjoyed working out the answers because some of the questions were quite interesting. I found it challenging to figure out what way to solve the question.

Do you do problem solving in your class?