SAVY 2019: Session 4, Day 4 – Puzzles and Problem Solving (Rising 5th/6th)
Students worked very well on the Pirate Problem this morning! This is a problem that my (much!) older students often struggle with, and this class just tackled the issues head on and found a solution. As I have said many times, the answer to the original problem often just raises more questions. The original problem had 5 pirates, and tomorrow we will extend the problem into the hundreds of pirates!
After lunch, we spent some time looking at rebus puzzles. An example of a rebus puzzle would be “STA4NCE,” where students noticed the four inside the word stance and were able to translate that to the phrase “for instance” (four in stance). Some of these were much more challenging, and some students took the opportunity to create their own. I loved seeing their creativity!
We then simulated working through the Monty Hall Problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem). Each partnership got to play ten games while sticking and ten games while switching in order to understand the seemingly counterintuitive mathematics. In our simulation, stick won 41% of the time (a good bit above the theoretical 33.3%) and switch won 58% of the time (a good bit below the theoretical 66.7%).
It is hard to believe that class is almost over! There are so many things that I want to do tomorrow, and I wish we would have time for them all. There are also a few loose ends to tie up from our previously investigated problems, and we will study at least two new problems. I look forward to meeting many parents and guardians tomorrow at Open House, and I am excited to share some of the awesome things these students have done this week!
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