Use What You Know!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday, a student asked me for help with

21%

the following problem.
I was honest and said, "hmm, I'm not quite sure, I haven't done a problem like that in many years.  But, I do know that in math, you find out what you know and start with that."
So----- we knew that "is" can be "=" and "of" can be multiplication (x).  We then knew we could change the way the problem was read by substituting smaller numbers.
Example:
10 = 5  x ___   can be written as 5   x  ______ = 10

We know this answer is 2, but how?  We divided... 10 divided by 2 is 5.
So........ 84 divided by 21% = the missing number.

 We remembered how to change %s back to decimals and how to divide with decimals and got our answer of 400.

We did the problem without really knowing how. 
Lesson?  ALWAYS start with what you know, NOT with what you don't know.
I love teaching math and am excited to be back at it this year!

Summer School Gardening and such........

We have spent a little bit of time every day weeding the gardens.  This has led us to write plant identification guides on the plants that are growing in these gardens.  Today we worked on writing introductions and claims.

Working hard on the pizza garden!

If found a plant!  Basal or pepper?

Introduction & claim work.