Description
What our Mental Computation lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Mental Computation teaches students how to solve equations using mental math. At the end of the lesson, students will be able to solve two-step word problems by representing them as equations with a variable and assess the reasonableness of the answer using mental computation strategies such as rounding. This lesson is for students in 3rd grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the blue box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand.
Options for Lesson
Included with this lesson is an “Options for Lesson” section that lists a number of suggestions for activities to add to the lesson or substitutions for the ones already in the lesson. One optional addition to this lesson is to have your students write their own two step problems from a topic they enjoy and then solve them using either an equation or mental math. You can also use situations in your classroom to model word problems and increase student understanding. Finally, to expand the lesson, you can use it in conjunction with a lesson on translating expressions or variables to develop bridges in your students’ knowledge base.
Teacher Notes
The teacher notes page includes a paragraph with additional guidelines and things to think about as you begin to plan your lesson. This page also includes lines that you can use to add your own notes as you’re preparing for this lesson.
MENTAL COMPUTATION LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
Mental Computation
The Mental Computation lesson plan includes two content pages. Sometimes, to solve a math problem, you need to use more than one step. This lesson walks students through a few problems, showing how to solve them using variables. Did you know that you can use mental math and estimation to help determine if your final answer is reasonable?
In the first example problem, Heather needs 88 total cupcakes. She bakes 31 strawberry and 16 chocolate cupcakes. How many does she still need? Our goal with this problem is to figure out the number of cupcakes she still needs to bake to reach 88. We’ll use the variable c to represent the cupcakes she needs to bake. Remember that a variable is an unknown value.
To solve this problem, we’ll use the equation 31 + 16 + c = 88. First, we add 31 and 16 to get 47. Now our equation is 47 + c = 88. Next, we subtract 47 from both sides. Once we do this, we find that c = 41. Heather needs to bake 41 more cupcakes!
We can also solve using mental math by rounding: 30 + 20 = 50 cupcakes already baked. 90 (total number of cupcakes needed) – 50 (the number already baked) = 40 (cupcakes that need to be baked). Now we know that our answer is reasonable.
The lesson includes two more examples that follow the same format. First, we read the question and identify our goal and variable. Then, we create our equation and solve. Finally, we double-check that our answer is reasonable by using mental math to get an estimated answer. Students should follow along with these examples to learn why and how using mental math is useful when solving math equations.
MENTAL COMPUTATION LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Mental Computation lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. You can refer to the guide on the classroom procedure page to determine when to hand out each worksheet.
CLASS PROBLEMS ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
For the activity worksheet, students will solve four problems written on the board by their teacher. They will share their answers with a classmate and share aloud with the whole class.
SOLVING PROBLEMS PRACTICE WORKSHEET
For the practice worksheet, students will solve each of the given word problems using either an equation or mental math.
MENTAL COMPUTATION HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
Like the practice worksheet, for the homework assignment, students will solve each of the given word problems using either an equation or mental math.
Worksheet Answer Keys
This lesson plan includes answer keys for the practice worksheet and the homework assignment. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
