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Problem Solving

How do you use what you have learned to problem solve?

Goal:

Goal:

math monkey

Practice!

Goal: Apply what you have learned about rounding to solve word problems.

Now that you have learned how to round, you can challenge yourself to solve word problems by rounding and adding or subtracting! Have your paper and pencil nearby so that you're ready to solve.

Zoe and Madelyn are planning to visit the aquarium together. They want to know about how much money they have if they put their money together. Zoe has 271 cents, and Madelyn has 436 cents. How much money do they have altogether when their money is rounded to the nearest hundred?

Word Problem Solving Steps

  1. Read the problem.
  2. Look for important information.
  3. Round the numbers.
  4. Decide how to solve.
  5. Solve and label your answer.
Ava with Madelyn

Read the problem first. You may want to read it a few times so that you understand all the important information. Be sure you can identify what the word problem is asking. We need to find out about how much money the girls have.

Next, we look for the important information and write it down. Zoe has 271 cents, and Madelyn has 436 cents. Let's write those numbers.

271

436

The word problem is asking us to find out about how much money the girls have. The word about is our clue that we will be rounding. At the end of the word problem, we read that we need to find out how much money they have if we round the amounts to the nearest hundred. We can use a place-value chart to help us round! Click the Show me button to see what digit will help us round.

Place value chart. Column 1: Hundreds 2, Column 2: Tens 7, Column 3: Ones 1.
Place value chart. Column 1: Hundreds 2, Column 2: Tens 7 (circled), Column 3: Ones 1.

The 7 in the tens place tells us to round up to the next hundred. Zoe has about 300 cents.

We need another place-value chart for Madelyn's cents.

Place value chart. Column 1: Hundreds 4, Column 2: Tens 3, Column 3: Ones 6.

Do you know which place we will use to help us round? Click the button to find out if you are correct!

Place value chart. Column 1: Hundreds 4, Column 2: Tens 3 (circled), Column 3: Ones 6.

Were you right? The 3 in the tens place tells us to round down to 400.

We've made it one step closer to solving the problem because we rounded the numbers. This makes the numbers easier to work with!

Now that we rounded the numbers, we can decide how to solve the problem. There are key words in the problem that tell us how! It asks how much money they have altogether. Altogether is a key word that lets us know we need to add the numbers together. That's easy because we already rounded the numbers! Write the problem on your paper.

300 plus 400 equals ?

Can you solve the problem? Bring down the zeroes in the ones and tens columns and then add 3 + 4. What is your answer? Click the button to see if you added correctly.

300 plus 400 equals 700

We solved the problem! Now, we need to label our answer. Zoe and Madelyn have 700 cents. You did it!

Which answer shows the place-value charts that would help you solve the story problem?

Ava and Logan are planning their visit to the aquarium. They want to combine some of their money to buy a souvenir together. Ava has 2,548 cents, and Logan has 6,320 cents. They want to know about how much money they have altogether if they round their cents to the nearest thousand?

  1. Place value chart. Column 1: Thousands 8, Column 2: Hundreds 4, Column 3: tens 5 (circled), Column 4: ones 2. Place value chart. Column 1: Thousands 0, Column 2: Hundreds 2, Column 3: tens 3 (circled), Column 4: ones 6.
  2. Place value chart. Column 1: Thousands 2, Column 2: Hundreds 5, Column 3: tens 4 (circled), Column 4: ones 8. Place value chart. Column 1: Thousands 6, Column 2: Hundreds 3, Column 3: tens 2 (circled), Column 4: ones 0.
  3. Place value chart. Column 1: Thousands 2, Column 2: Hundreds 5 (circled), Column 3: tens 4, Column 4: ones 8. Place value chart. Column 1: Thousands 6, Column 2: Hundreds 3 (circled), Column 3: tens 2, Column 4: ones 0.

Summary

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Questions answered incorrectly: