Help with 2nd grader's math homework??? Please??

[Chrysalis Academy]

Maybe this is what's wrong with math education:  my dd's friend is over at our house this afternoon, and she's stumped by the following homework problem:

 

She is given this data in a table:

 

Place to visit      Votes

Aquarium            32

Museum             46

Planet show       27

Zoo                    29

 

 

 

 5. Which kind of trip was more 

popular, a trip to see live 

animals or a trip to either the 

museum or the planet show? 

By how many votes?

 

 

:blink: Do you think this is asking them to add the aquarium plus the zoo, and then compare it to . . . what?  the planet show, and the museum, separately?  Or what?  I have to confess that I have absolutely no clue what this problem is asking her to do . . . I'm pretty confident that we both could figure out how to do the computation, if we could figure out what the problem was asking . . . any ideas?

 

Or maybe it's asking to compare the zoo trip to the museum and the planet show, and say which of the three is most popular?

 

 

FWIW, I remember with deep hatred this program from my older dd's 2nd grade year - it is Houghton Mifflin CA math.  I remember banging my head many a night trying to help my dd, and sympathizing with the families of the ~70% of kids whose parents were not native English speakers . . . 

[Chrysalis Academy]

And her next problem is:

 

If each club member could vote for two trips, how many club members are there?

 

Now, this is a very straightforward question . . . if you know how to divide.  Which, she doesn't, as this is 2nd grade.

 

I tried to explain it.  I really did.  I tried drawing pictures, making a table, anything I could to explain the idea that the number of votes is double the number of people . . . and she didn't get it.  I can't figure out how to explain it to her.

 

Am I just a bad teacher?   :confused1: Or is this a ridiculous question to ask a 2nd grader who is just learning 2-digit addition and subtraction? Or am I missing something?

 

I have never gotten "stuck" explaining something to my own kids, but she is just staring at me like I'm speaking Japanese.

[forty-two]

5. Which kind of trip was more popular, a trip to see live animals or a trip to either the museum or the planet show? By how many votes?

Both the zoo and the aquarium would count under "live animals", so my guess is that you are supposed to compare zoo + aquarium votes to museum + planet show votes.

[Pen]

Hmm.   I'm inclined to agree with above, but think it is poorly worded.

 

For the two vote part, I don't think it makes too much sense to ask it before division, but one could try doing a simulated vote (or votes) with the people present (or pretend people) and give each one 1 vote, then 2 votes and compare results.  

[ErinE]

Since the second part is phrased as either/or, I think the question is asking for live animals or the other two places combined. For the two vote question, does she know doubles? My kids could figure out doubles before division.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Ok, my dh claims it is "very straightforward" - you add up the aquarium plus the zoo, so answer 1 is "live animals".  Answers two and three are the difference between live animals and museum, and the difference between live animals and planet show.  Ok, not so straightforward to me, but I guess I can live with it . . . 

 

For the 2nd problem, OMG!!! You should see the pictures I drew to try and explain this . . . . I had everybody in the house give two votes, and tried to show how the votes were a double of the people . . . she looked at me like I have antenna.  I don't know if it's me or her???

 

But gee whiz, is this what they should be agonizing over for hours in 2nd grade???

[mom2scouts]

I take my dd to an extracurricular activity and EVERY SINGLE WEEK I listen to parents complain about not being able to figure out the math homework brought home by their first and second graders.  One of the moms gave an example similar to the op.  The problem would have been simple *if* the student knew how to divide. I think the questions are poorly worded and ridiculous.

[SKL]

My kids just had to draw and solve this problem:  there were 8 kids in the sand.  3 went in.  how many were in the sand then?  OK, what exactly do they mean by "3 went in"?  "in" the sand or "in" somewhere else?  My kids both figured they meant that 3 kids went inside somewhere, leaving 5 kids outside in the sand.  Miss A realized it was confusing, so she drew and labeled a "door" with arrows showing the 3 kids who went "in."  Bah.

 

I frequently come across problems that are worded in a way that either intentionally or unintentionally trips kids up.

 

Last week my kid gave up on a paper where they kept asking "what is the value of the underlined digit" - e.g., in 143.  She explained to the teacher that it was worth 100 yet kept circling "1" because the digit was "1."  Teacher said she was not allowed to explain even though she could see the kid knew the concept.  It was the wording of the question that was new to her.

[Lolly]

For the first problem, I would give all 3 answers with labels to show what it was comparing. Maybe the teacher will have a light bulb go on and realize the question is ambiguous. It is NOT an obvious question. For the second question, the only way to show it without doing division would be to add them together and then split it into two groups by hand. (Probably what you tried to draw.)

[avilma]

Here is one way to do the second problem that is accessible to second graders:

Tally the votes:

Aquarium            | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

Museum             | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 

Planet show       | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

Zoo                     | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 

Now add another row:

Club members  | | | | | | | | ....

Anytime you add a club member you cross out 2 votes. When there are no more votes to cross out you stop and count the number of club members.

 

 

[Library Momma]

This reminds me of a question I posted last week.  About a child earning money by doing chores at home and washing the family car.  It never occurred to me that washing the car wasn't part of his chores.  The math was the easy part, understanding the wording was a whole other story.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Right.  I agree.  It's really unfortunate when the linguistics gets in the way of the math.  It's particularly unfortunate when a large percentage of the students are ESL/ELL, so that they may be struggling with English anyway, and may not be able to get help at home with parsing the questions.

 

I've seen this so many times volunteering in my girls' classrooms: say you are a kid from a Spanish-speaking family.  School pretty much makes you feel dumb from day 1 - you can't understand a lot of what is going on, and you can't communicate what you know.  I've seen a lot of smart kids gobsmacked by this in K-2.  Math is the one area where a bright, non-native English speaker can really shine, can really show what he/she knows, and get some much-needed recognition and encouragement to engage with school, with learning, and with his/her own intellect.  Then we throw this kind of "word problem" at the kid.  How discouraging.

[SKL]

I just got a paper on which my 7yo got some "word relationships" wrong.  In fact she flunked the paper spectacularly.  Looking it over, a lot of the questions depended on the child's individual life experience.  (Some my kid got right, others wrong.)  For example:

 

summer : lemonade :: winter :___ (correct answer is hot chocolate, but we never have that, only milk all winter!)

 

Rudolph : reinder :: Frosty :___  (it would be too bad if you didn't celebrate Christmas!)

 

carrot : nose :: sticks : ___ (the right answer is arms.  If you think sticks can be used to make a snowman's mouth, legs, or eyes, you are obviously stupid.)

 

spring : baseball :: winter : ___ (the right answer is hockey.  My kid chose bowling.  Seems reasonable to me.  We don't watch TV and certainly don't go to ice hockey games.)

[Chrysalis Academy]

Well, he currently manages a water conservation program for a local municipal government.  Before that he was farming.  Before that he got his degree in Enviro Studies from UCSC.  Before that he was surfing & waiting tables.  Before that he was an aerospace engineering student targeted at being a pilot, but then his eyes went bad.  Before that he was a ridiculously gifted kid resenting all the gifted-program pullouts,  being raised by a single mom who died when he was 14.  At which point he was basically raised by wolves (well, by stoned hippies, but it's not that different).

 

He's one of the smartest people I know, but . . . kinda hard to pin down, KWIM?  :lol:  When he says things are easy, I kinda roll my eyes.  His idea of easy isn't the same as most people's.

[Farrar]

I know people love the Singapore CWP, but the awkward wording was why we eventually dropped it.  The math was tricky, but it was increasingly even trickier for me to figure out what was even being asked.

 

I think a lot of this stems from wanting to trick kids with the wording or at the very least, only give the very minimum information, which sometimes turns out to be less clear.  I get that sometimes it's a puzzle, but really when it's ambiguous, that's a problem...

[clarkacademy]

I would take it to the teacher and have her explain it to me LOL!!

[Korrale]

 

Maybe this is what's wrong with math education: my dd's friend is over at our house this afternoon, and she's stumped by the following homework problem:

 

She is given this data in a table:

 

 

Place to visit Votes

Aquarium 32

Museum 46

Planet show 27

Zoo 29

 

 

 

5. Which kind of trip was more

popular, a trip to see live

animals or a trip to either the

museum or the planet show?

By how many votes?

 

It is super simple. Basically the question is asking....

Which one is the most popular and by how much? Answer: Museum by 14 votes.

 

By saying a trip to see live animals it just another way of saying the zoo or the aquarium. Logic puzzles are worded like this all the time. And I have seen similarly worded questions before in 1st ans 2nd grade math books when learning data.

 

Here is another example.

 

Number of oranges children have.

John: 26

Mary: 53

Patrick: 17

Frank: 45

 

Who has more oranges Mary or the boys and by how much? Just another way to say who has more oranges Mary, John, Patrick, or Frank?

[Korrale]

And her next problem is:

 

If each club member could vote for two trips, how many club members are there?

 

Now, this is a very straightforward question . . . if you know how to divide. Which, she doesn't, as this is 2nd grade.

 

 

No not too hard for 2nd grade. This is just dealing with doubles. My son has had questions like his in various workbooks from pre-k to 1st. I would show this's in several ways. Easiest way is to give her 134 Cheerios and separate them into 2 different bowls.

[Lolly]

It is super simple. Basically the question is asking....

Which one is the most popular and by how much? Answer: Museum by 14 votes.

 

By saying a trip to see live animals it just another way of saying the zoo or the aquarium. Logic puzzles are worded like this all the time. And I have seen similarly worded questions before in 1st ans 2nd grade math books when learning data.

 

Here is another example.

 

Number of oranges children have.

John: 26

Mary: 53

Patrick: 17

Frank: 45

 

Who has more oranges Mary or the boys and by how much? Just another way to say who has more oranges Mary, John, Patrick, or Frank?

But, are you supposed to compare Mary to each boy individually or the boys as a group? If you say "the boys", I am going to go with the boys all added together. If you ask for "John, Patrick, or Frank", I am going to take each separately to compare. THe original question is clear that the two animal groups should be added together. The question left is do you compare that to the museums separately or add them together too? While it may appear obvious to some people, they may answer only to find that that is not actually what the question was asking. It is a poorly worded question.

[ErinE]

But, are you supposed to compare Mary to each boy individually or the boys as a group? If you say "the boys", I am going to go with the boys all added together. If you ask for "John, Patrick, or Frank", I am going to take each separately to compare. THe original question is clear that the two animal groups should be added together. The question left is do you compare that to the museums separately or add them together too? While it may appear obvious to some people, they may answer only to find that that is not actually what the question was asking. It is a poorly worded question.

If adults are debating the meaning of the question, I pity the kids trying to answer math homework on their own. Many families have working parents and math is done in after-school care or during the evening rush.

[SKL]

I think the Q in the OP is confusing, but I think their intention is to get kids to explain their reasoning rather than just mentally come up with the right answer.  So in a way it does not matter, since kids will usually assume one meaning or the other and run with it.  It's the parents who will look at it 10 times and say "what the heck are they even asking??"

 

So what I would do is have my kid answer on her own, and then add "but if the question is actually asking [the other thing], then the answer would be [different how].

 

Of course this assumes a teacher who has enough sense to not penalize a child for using his brain.

[Korrale]

But, are you supposed to compare Mary to each boy individually or the boys as a group? If you say "the boys", I am going to go with the boys all added together. If you ask for "John, Patrick, or Frank", I am going to take each separately to compare. THe original question is clear that the two animal groups should be added together. The question left is do you compare that to the museums separately or add them together too? While it may appear obvious to some people, they may answer only to find that that is not actually what the question was asking. It is a poorly worded question.

Lol. My question was worded poorly too. I should have said Which child has more oranges Mary or the boys? Or who has more oranges Mary or one of the boys?

 

As for the original question... I do see the ambiguity.

 

5. Which kind of trip was more

popular, a trip to see live

animals or a trip to either the

museum or the planet show?

 

Live animals = aquarium OR zoo? Or is it aquarium AND zoo? I think I will have to change my initial stance. It seems that the key words are "which kind of trip was more popular?". If it was aquarium OR zoo it should just say "which trip was more popular?"

So it would be, which is more popular live animals OR museum OR planet show.

[ErinE]

So it would be, which is more popular live animals OR museum OR planet show.

But that is not what the question asks. The question says: live animals or either the museum or the planet show. The either/or clause combines the museum and planet show numbers. I wouldn't expect a second grade to understand this. I also think adults can debate the particulars, as shown on this thread. Again, horribly worded question.

[Chrysalis Academy]

But, are you supposed to compare Mary to each boy individually or the boys as a group? If you say "the boys", I am going to go with the boys all added together. If you ask for "John, Patrick, or Frank", I am going to take each separately to compare. THe original question is clear that the two animal groups should be added together. The question left is do you compare that to the museums separately or add them together too? While it may appear obvious to some people, they may answer only to find that that is not actually what the question was asking. It is a poorly worded question.

 

 

Yep, what she said.  This was my issue with the question.  It wasn't clear whether you were to compare them separately, or combine them and compare the combined amount.  

[Meriwether]

Ok, my dh claims it is "very straightforward" - you add up the aquarium plus the zoo, so answer 1 is "live animals".  Answers two and three are the difference between live animals and museum, and the difference between live animals and planet show.  Ok, not so straightforward to me, but I guess I can live with it . . . 

 

For the 2nd problem, OMG!!! You should see the pictures I drew to try and explain this . . . . I had everybody in the house give two votes, and tried to show how the votes were a double of the people . . . she looked at me like I have antenna.  I don't know if it's me or her???

 

But gee whiz, is this what they should be agonizing over for hours in 2nd grade???

I read it the same as your Dh, but I think it is very poorly worded.

 

My second grader would understand the second one. He is just starting division, but he understands finding "half".

[Chrysalis Academy]

I read it the same as your Dh, but I think it is very poorly worded.

 

My second grader would understand the second one. He is just starting division, but he understands finding "half".

 

Yep, mine too.  I decided it's good that I don't teach other people's children!  :lol:

[SKL]

Per logic, "or" means you include a member of either group (add the two groups in this case).  But that concept is not taught until later.

[boscopup]

"a trip to see live animals or a trip to either the museum or the planet show"

 

Since it says a trip, they're asking about one trip. If you added the aquarium and zoo together, that would be two trips. So I vote for picking which of the 4 trips, rather than adding the live animals together.

 

As a PP said, they're trying to trick the kids, but they're making it an ambiguous question in the process. I also agree that CWP is bad about this as well. If you can't make the problem challenging enough using the tools the child has, wait until they have enough tools to make a challenging problem. There isn't that much challenge you can put into 2+3=5, so quit trying to challenge first graders like that. Let them learn the math. When I look at good quality challenging problems, such as those in the AoPS books (including Beast Academy), they are worded clearly. It's the math that is challenging.

 

 

[Elisabet1]

I would ditch the public school math book and go with a good one that home schoolers use more typically.

 

And remember, no one else is grading this but you. Make up your own rules. Not like the home school police is going to bust you. Pick up your pen or pencil and cross out "live animals" and write in "zoo."

[Chrysalis Academy]

I would ditch the public school math book and go with a good one that home schoolers use more typically.

 

And remember, no one else is grading this but you. Make up your own rules. Not like the home school police is going to bust you. Pick up your pen or pencil and cross out "live animals" and write in "zoo."

 

Oh, this isn't me and my kid!!  It was my dd's friend who was spending the evening with us, and I was helping her with her homework.  I posted the question because I was truly mystified about how to help her with the problem, and also because I thought it was relevant to several recent discussion of math teaching, learning, and curricula.

 

So yeah, sadly, someone besides me was grading this . . .