Why should we place a focus on quantities instead of numbers?
Here is a problem:
Luca baked 3 dozen cookies. He used 9 boxes to equally package his cookies. He then baked 2 dozen more cookies. How many cookies did he bake?
I'm using this problem because a very similar situation happened recently. When I spoke with my friend, I asked, "So how many cookies did you bake in all?" Even though she had not boxed all of her cookies, she kept focusing on how many she boxed by multiplying 4 times the number of boxes she had. She was confused because she was sure she had baked more than the product she came up with and kept focusing on dividing 36 by 9 and then multiplying 9 x 4.
Even though the problem seems simple enough, it was one that happened in real life and it stumped my friend.
Here is a problem:
Luca baked 3 dozen cookies. He used 9 boxes to equally package his cookies. He then baked 2 dozen more cookies. How many cookies did he bake?
I'm using this problem because a very similar situation happened recently. When I spoke with my friend, I asked, "So how many cookies did you bake in all?" Even though she had not boxed all of her cookies, she kept focusing on how many she boxed by multiplying 4 times the number of boxes she had. She was confused because she was sure she had baked more than the product she came up with and kept focusing on dividing 36 by 9 and then multiplying 9 x 4.
Even though the problem seems simple enough, it was one that happened in real life and it stumped my friend.
