Sometimes word problems are just that- Word Problems, meaning that their is no numbers to add or subtract, just words to organize.  These types of problems are the hardest for students to solve!  These types of problems are also the ones we face the most in life 🙁 .  We worked today to develop skills and strategies to solve this kind of problem.  We came up with 2 plans of attack when we are faced with these evil challenges.  The first attack plan works for problems with few choices like the picture on the top left.  This problem read:

Madison and Maren have 3 pets, a dog, cat and fish at home that they have to feed each day.  They like to feed them in a different order each day.  How many different combinations can they use to feed their pets? 

To solve this problem they wrote out an organized list like the one you see in the picture, then counted the number of groups they created to get their answer.

For problems that involve multiple variables (choices) they used our second pland of attack.  They created charts to help organize the information given like the one in the picture to the right.  This chart helped them solve the problem below:

The school spirit team is creating new shirts to sell.  The shirt colors they can choose from are blue, green, red, yellow, and white.  The designs  they can choose from are a bear, a picture of the school, or a thunderbolt.  How many different combinations can they create?

By creating the chart, they could easily organize and then count the many combinations they created. 

Students hate these types of word problems.  I know this.  I do not assign them as a form of torture, but rather as practice for life.  How many times have you as an adult had to look at different combinations for a sandwich or seating arrangements for an event?  Being able to take information and organize it in a way that makes combinations easily accounted for is a life skill.  So while they may moan and groan a bit doing homework tonight, encourage them to try their best and review the steps and pictures above.