How Many Ways: Times Equals Minus

Objective

Students will find multiple solutions to a single math statement by filling in the blanks.

You can certainly stop after Step One, but the second and third steps encourage students to move higher up Bloom's Taxonomy, climbing to the Analyze and Synthesis levels.

Fill-in-the-blanks idea inspired by the folks at Open Middle

Steps

1. First, students look for as many possible solutions as they can find.
2. Then, they look for patterns in their findings and give each pattern a name.
3. Finally, which of those patterns would hold true if we changed from subtraction to addition on the right side of the equation?

Resources

• 44 Possible Solutions (PDF)
• Worksheet (PDF)