Level C Lesson 2
SOLVE –O
SOLVE is a method that can be used to help solve word problems. There are five steps in this problem-solving method. Step S, Study the Problem. Step O, Organize the Facts, Step L, Line up a Plan, Step V, Verify Your Plan with Action, and Step E, Examine Your Results. We will be using this problem-solving method throughout the year. In this lesson we will focus on Step O, Organize the Facts.
In lesson 2 the objective is, the student will learn and practice the second step in the SOLVE problem-solving method.
The skills students should have in order to help them in this lesson include: knowledge of the S Step in SOLVE.
We will have three essential questions that will be guiding our lesson. Number 1, what does the O in SOLVE represent? Number 2, why is it important to identify the facts in a word problem? And number 3, why is it important to eliminate unnecessary information?
We are going to go back to the problem, MaryAnn and LaQuisha helped clean their homes last weekend. They earned their allowance of $5.00 per week cleaning their own living spaces. It took MaryAnn 4 hours to clean her living space. It took LaQuisha 3 hours to clean her living space. Together, how many hours did both girls work?
Lets review what we did in Step S, Study the Problem. First we underlined the question. Together, how many hours did both girls work? Next we put this problem into our own words. This problem is asking me to find the number of hours altogether, MaryAnn and LaQuisha worked.
Now lets look at Step O, Organize the Facts. Word problems contain facts that are easier to deal with when organized. Organizing the facts helps good problem solvers pay attention to details. We will have three steps to Step O, Organizing the Facts. The first is to identify the facts. The facts in a word problem can be any statement whether it is needed to solve the problem or not. Facts can also be numbers. When we see a fact we want to include a strike mark at the end of that fact. Lets read the problem together and identify each fact. MaryAnn and LaQuisha helped clean their homes last weekend, this is a fact so we’ll put a strike mark at the end of that fact. They earned their allowance of $5.00 per week cleaning their own living spaces, also a fact. It took MaryAnn 4 hours to clean her living space, fact. It took LaQuisha 3 hours to clean her living space, fact. Together how many hours did both girls work? Now we have identified each fact in the problem. Even though a fact is true it might not be needed to solve the problem. In order to determine if a fact is necessary, we need to go back to the S Step to find out if the fact is needed to determine what the problem is asking us to find. In this problem they’re asking us to find the number of hours altogether MaryAnn and LaQuisha worked. To help us identify which facts are necessary and unnecessary we’re going to take an index card, and at one end of the index card we’re going to draw a check mark. The check mark is going to represent that a fact is necessary. On the other end of the card we want to put an x. The x is going to represent that the fact is unnecessary. When a fact is necessary we will hold up our index card using the check mark. When a fact is unnecessary we will turn the card around and hold up the x to show that the fact is unnecessary. Our next step is to eliminate the unnecessary facts. Let’s take a look at each of our facts. MaryAnn and LaQuisha helped clean their homes last weekend. Is this fact going to help us to determine how many hours altogether both girls worked? No, this fact is unnecessary, so we’ll hold up the x side of our index card. Since this fact is unnecessary we’re going to cross it out, as we will not be using it to solve the problem. The next fact is that they earned their allowance of $5.00 per week cleaning their own living spaces. This fact also is unnecessary as it will not tell us, altogether how many hours the girls worked. So we will cross out this fact as well. Next, it took Mary Ann 4 hours to clean her living space. This information is necessary to solve the problem. So we will hold up our check mark on our index card to show that this fact is necessary. Since it is necessary we’re going to keep it. And our last fact, it took LaQuisha 3 hours to clean her living space. This fact is also necessary, so we will keep this fact in the problem. Finally we want to list the necessary facts that we found. MaryAnn worked 4 hours. LaQuisha worked 3 hours.
Now let’s go back to our foldable and add in our Step O. We started by putting the problem on the top cover of our foldable. The first flap represented Step S, Study the Problem. In Step S, we underlined the question, how many more times did Dion tag Chu than Chu tagged Dion? And we answered this problem is asking me to find. This problem is asking me to find the difference between the number of times Dion tagged Chu and Chu tagged Dion.
Now we will add Step O, Organize the Facts. This will go on the next flap under Step S. You will want to put that on your foldable now. Now let’s lift up our flaps so that we are on Step O, Organize the Facts. Here we will list the steps that we took to organize the facts. First, we identify the facts. Let’s go back to the problem. Dion is playing the game of tag with his friend Chu, fact. They have played the game everyday during playtime at school for the last 4 days, fact. Dion tagged Chu 12 times today, fact; and Chu tagged Dion 7 times today, also a fact. How many more times did Dion tag Chu than Chu tagged Dion? Once we’ve identified the facts, we need to eliminate the unnecessary facts. Dion is playing the game of tag with his friend Chu. Since this will not help us to know how many more times Dion tagged Chu than Chu tagged Dion, we will eliminate this fact. They have played the game every day during playtime at school for the last 4 days. Knowing how long they’ve been playing the game is not going to help us to know how many more times one of the boys tagged the other boy, so we will also cross out this fact. Dion tagged Chu 12 times today, that will help us to answer the question of how many more times did Dion tag Chu than Chu tagged Dion. And Chu tagged Dion 7 times today. This is also going to be necessary to helping us figure out how many more times Dion tagged Chu than Chu tagged Dion, so we will keep both of these facts. Once we’ve eliminated our unnecessary facts we’re going to list the necessary facts. Dion tagged Chu 12 times. Chu tagged Dion 7 times. This completes the O Step in our SOLVE foldable.
Now let’s go back and discuss the essential questions from this lesson.
Our first question was, what does the O in SOLVE represent? O means Organize the Facts.
Number 2, Why is it important to identify the facts in a word problem? We identify the facts so that we know the important facts when answering the question being asked.
And Number 3, why is it important to eliminate unnecessary information? It helps to focus on the facts that are necessary to answer the question being asked.