LESSON 2 – SOLVE L
The objective for this lesson SOLVE Step L is, the student will learn and practice the third step (L) in the SOLVE problem-solving method.
The skills students should have in order to help them in this lesson include, knowledge of the “S” and “O” steps in SOLVE.
We will have three essential questions that will be guiding our lesson. Number 1, what does the L in SOLVE represent? Number 2, why is it important to write your plan in words before completing the math? And number 3, why is it important to determine the operation in the L step?
We will begin by completing the warm-up using the first two steps of SOLVE Steps “S” and “O” to prepare for SOLVE Step L in this lesson.
REVIEW OF SOLVE
SOLVE is a method that can be used to help solve word problems. We will use this problem-solving method throughout the year.
There are five steps of SOLVE. Step S is to Study the Problem, Step O is to Organize the Facts, Step L is to Line Up a Plan, Step V is to Verify Your Plan with Action, and Step E is to Examine Your Results.
Let’s begin by working on one additional step for this lesson, Step L to Line Up a Plan.
We will start by reviewing the S and O steps from the previous lesson.
WORK WITH SOLVE – INTRODUCE THER L STEP
Problem one is the same problem from Lesson one. Let’s review the S and O steps again.
The problem is, Mario loves to play basketball. He has saved fourteen dollars but a new basketball costs twenty seven dollars. He plans to mow lawns to earn some additional money. How much money will he need to earn to buy the basketball?
In Step S, we Studied the Problem. First we had to identify where the question is located within the problem and underline the question. The question for this problem was, how much money will he need to earn to buy the basketball?
Once we identified the question we put this question in our own words in the form of a statement. This problem is asking me to find the amount of money Mario needs to earn to buy the basketball.
In Step O, we Organized the Facts. First we identified the facts. Mario loves to play basketball/fact. He has saved fourteen dollars/fact, but a new basketball costs twenty seven dollars/fact. He plans to mow lawns to earn some additional money/fact. How much money will he need to earn to buy the basketball?
Once we identified the facts we eliminated the unnecessary facts. These are the facts that will not help us to find the amount of money Mario needs to earn to buy the basketball. Mario loves to play basketball. We said that this was an unnecessary fact, as it does not help us to find the amount of money Mario needs to earn to buy the basketball. So we eliminated this fact. He has saved fourteen dollars. We said that this fact was necessary. Because knowing the amount of money that he has saved will help us to find the amount of money that he needs to earn to buy the basketball. So we keep this fact. But a new basketball costs twenty seven dollars. We said that this fact was also necessary, because knowing the cost of a new basketball will help us to find the amount of money Mario still needs to earn to buy the basketball. So we kept this fact as well. He plans to mow lawns to earn some additional money. We said that this fact was unnecessary. Knowing that he is going to mow lawns to earn the money will not help us to find the amount of money that he needs to earn. So we eliminated this fact.
Once we eliminated the unnecessary facts we listed the necessary facts. These facts are, that Mario has saved fourteen dollars, and that a basketball costs twenty seven dollars. This completes Steps S and O.
Now we will learn about the third step of SOLVE – the L Step. “L” stands for Line Up a Plan. In this step, we will be writing a plan in words with no numbers. The reason we write the plan in words with no numbers is that if we come across a similar problem later, and the numbers are changed, we can still use the plan.
OPERATION WORD WALL
Sometimes we may struggle to determine what operation or operations we need to use when solving a problem. To help us with the L step, we can create an Operation Word Wall. This Operation Word Wall can assist us when determining an appropriate operation to use when solving a problem. Let’s organize all of our operation words into categories: For addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and equals. Some of the words that could indicate that you need to use addition or subtraction are listed here. Some of the words that could indicate that you need to use multiplication or division are listed here. And some of the words that could indicate equals are listed here. Remember that an Operation Word Wall can assist us when determining an appropriate operation to use when solving a problem.
WORK WITH SOLVE – L STEP
Now let’s reread Problem one. Then we will do a think aloud to come up with a plan! The problem is, Mario loves to play basketball. He has saved fourteen dollars, but a new basketball costs twenty seven dollars. He plans to mow lawns to earn some additional money. How much money will he need to earn to buy the basketball?
Let’s think aloud through a plan together. I need to line up a plan. I know that I need to find out how much money Mario needs to buy a new basketball because I identified the question in the S step. I also know that the cost of the basketball is twenty seven dollars, and Mario has already saved fourteen dollars, because I listed the necessary facts in the O Step. I know I have to find the amount of money Mario needs to purchase the basketball. Do you have any other ideas for plans that you want to share? Let’s keep thinking aloud together.
Next, I need to write in words what my plan of action will be. I know I should not use any numbers when writing my plan. I know that the basketball costs twenty seven dollars and Mario has already saved fourteen dollars.
What do you think we should do next? To find “how much more” money is needed, my plan would be to subtract the money Mario has saved from the amount of money he needs to purchase the basketball. How would you write this plan in your own words? Write your plan in your book. What operation did we use to find how much more Mario needs? We use subtraction.
Now let’s complete Step L. Remember first we write in words what your plan of action will be. Based on our think aloud we said that we would subtract the amount of money Mario has saved from the amount of money he needs to purchase the basketball. What operation or operations are included in our plan? We included the operation of subtraction.
This completes Step L of the SOLVE process.
SOLVE FOLDABLE – PRACTICE PROBLEM
We will now continue to add to our foldable for SOLVE with the L Step that we learned about in this lesson.
Let’s start by reviewing Steps S and O together for the foldable.
The problem is Ms. Smito is baking cookies for a class of thirty students. It takes fifteen minutes to bake a batch of twelve cookies. How long will it take to bake seven batches of cookies, if each batch is baked separately?
In Step S, we Studied the Problem. We underlined the question and put the question in our own words in the form of a statement. This problem is asking me to find the length of time it will take to bake seven batches of cookies.
In Step O, we Organized the Facts. We identified the facts, then we eliminated the unnecessary facts, and then listed the necessary facts. The necessary facts were fifteen minutes to bake and we needed seven batches baked separately.
Now we will add Step L to our foldable on the next flap. Label the next flap as L Line Up a Plan. Now lift the flaps so that we are on the flap for Step L, Line Up a Plan. Let’s write the steps for L here. First we need to write in words what your plan of action will be. Remember that we do not us any numbers in our plan. And then we identify what operation or operations we used in our plan.
The plan for this problem is to multiply the number of batches by the number of minutes that it takes to bake each batch. The operation that is used in this plan is multiplication.
This completes the L Step for the foldable. We will come back to this foldable to add the last two steps of the SOLVE process in the next lesson.
CLOSURE
Now let’s go back and discuss the essential questions from this lesson.
Our first question was, what does the L in SOLVE represent? L means Line Up a Plan.
Our second question was, why is it important to write your plan in words before completing the math? If you come across the same problem later, and the numbers are changed, you can still use the same plan.
And our third question was, why is it important to determine the operation in the L step? The operation is what you will do with the facts.