Problem Solving with Story Boxes Components

The activities that make up Problem Solving with Story Boxes are organized into two Teachers Guides.

Teachers Guides

Each Teachers Guide for Story Boxes features several themes and associated lesson plans. Also include are instructions for preparing manipulatives as well as discussion of assessment and implementation issues.

Kindergarten
Themes in this first year are drawn from everyday experiences such as riding the school bus, buying toys, and eating at a fast food restaurant.

Problems are posed that involve counting, comparing, adding, subtracting, grouping, and partitioning quantities under twelve for most of the year. During this time students develop their counting strategies, their ability to read and write numbers, their sense of quantity and operation, and the ways they are able to express and represent their thinking.

Children move from solving teacher-posed problems to creating their own picture problems. They have the opportunity to create and share their own strategies for adding, subtracting, grouping, and partitioning.

Grades 1 & 2
Themes for Grades 1 & 2 are based on familiar situations like riding the school bus, receiving presents, shopping for toys and cookies, and holiday fun such as Halloween.

Stories that involve missing addends or subtrahends, comparison of quantities, multiplication, or division provide rich problem-solving challenges to most primary children. Later in the year, some first graders and many second graders are ready to tackle problems that involve addition and subtraction of double digit numbers, partitioning, combined operations, or extraneous information. Along the way children move from solving teacher-posed problems to creating their own picture problems.