Math Beyond Workbooks

Number of the Day

• skills involved: number sense, basic operations, order of operations


• materials needed: paper, pencils

1. Start each class (or one class per week) by writing a two- or three-digit number on the board. Students try to come up with as many different number sentences that they can in 5 minutes that equal this number.



2. They should use as many different operations as possible.



3. For example, if the number of the day is 250, they can write:
   
   25 x 10 = 250
   5 x 5 x (2 + 8) = 250
   13 x 20 ‚ 10 = 250
   etc.



4. Be sure they respect the order of operations as they record their expressions. For example, the second example above would be incorrect without the parentheses. List everyone's expressions on the board or on flip chart paper and discuss them. If one of the operations has not been included, challenge students to find a solution using the missing operation.