"The last time I taught math was 2007, and even though it was important to teach how to solve math problems, an emphasis was not put on it like it is today, I tended to skip them, because I knew they mostly daunting to the students, and I did not have time to teach them how. Or, maybe I did not have the skills to teach them properly.
I like it when fellow classmates post problems or bumps in the road they encounter in their classrooms, because it gives me a new opportunity to research a topic for making the classroom a better place. I found the article, Fun with Math: Word Problems, Galore! (Hummell, 2013) from the magazine, Children's Technology & Engineering. The article gives a good example of how a picture book and other strategies can aid in teaching a concept.
The book featured is Math Curse, by Jon Scienszka, and tells of a young girl facing many math problems throughout her day. The article also lists strategies in which to implement with students. One point I have forgotten about is the students’ varying reading comprehension levels. There are suggested sites listed for help with this, such as MathBlaster’s Math Problems and Practice for Kids, www.mathblaster.com/teachers/math-problems, and www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/solving-math-curse-reading-1123.html to name two of them. The article also claims that mathematics word-problem crossword puzzles are a good strategy for helping students along with mastering them. It states that they extend, support, enriched literacy-based instructional goals, analyze, master critical thinking skills, and improve their overall vocabulary and reading comprehension. Creating their own crossword puzzles will allow the students to experiment with language acquisition and problem-solving skills. ReadWriteThink has a crossword generator for teachers here, www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/crossword/create/for-teachers. There is also an example of a word problem booklet that is modeled in the book Math Curse that students can make themselves.
I have not read Math Curse but am eager to check it out from the library. Here is a list of 115 other picture books that involve math problems: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/math-picture-books. GoodReads.com is an amazing site in which to find lists of books pertaining to any topic. This link is one of many that list picture books pertaining to math problems. When I Googled, goodreads list math picture books, a couple of separate lists from GoodReads came up. Using picture books is always wonderful, especially because students have someone else to relate their lives to."
Hummell, L. (2013). fun with math: word problems galore!. Children's Technology & Engineering, 17(3), 21-23.