How a shopping list for Snow White helps students with problem solving

Darienne Crickmar of Victor Harbour R - 7 School has been doing problematised situations with her reception students. Her latest problem was related to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Snow White had to make a shopping list for their dinner. They each wanted: 

• 2 sausages
• 3 carrots
• 5 potatoes
• 10 peas.

When the children started solving the problem they decided that Snow White needed to eat as well, hence 8 plates of food. The following work samples have been annotated by Darienne after she interviewed the children about their solution strategies. One of the samples is incomplete but it shows what a child who has only been at school for a few weeks can do. Notice how clever Darienne has been in her selection of numbers, counting by twos, fives and tens is part of the curriculum.

Doing it in a problem solving situation leads to purposeful skip counting not simply rote counting. Enjoy. Thank you Darienne for an interesting problematised situation.