Ah, differentiation. A word that gave me a lot of stress when I was doing my student teaching. My understanding was that I would have to plan 20 different lessons to meet all of my students needs. Which seemed like a ton of work.
As it turns out, there are some tricks to meet all needs in a much more efficient way. I've created these word problems in Math to help my strugglers, my grade level kids, and the ones who need a challenge. Every question is open-ended, which means there are multiple (sometimes infinite!) ways to solve the question. Instead of asking a kid "what it 2+2? ", if you tell them "the answer to a question is 4," they will be thinking critically about what they know about numbers and operations. Plus, I have so many competitive kids that love to challenge their friends to find the most solutions to the questions.
I typically do one word problem a week - we call it Word Problem Wednesdays in our room. :) We start by looking over the prompts together. Sometimes I let kids choose if they want to do level 1, 2, or 3, and sometimes I assign it. Depending how low your Level 1 group is, you may want to work with them. Note that Level 1 includes no text for your kiddos to read, just pictures and a basic number sentence for them to solve. There is a read aloud portion for you to read to them.
For each level, there are two versions of the prompt - a large poster size and a small notebook size. I cut the notebook size up and have them glue it in their books. Below are two samples of the same question in Level 1 (where the student used manipulatives to help them represent their learning) and Level 2 where the student solved and wrote a statement. They found two ways to solve, but there could be endless options. I don't always require a written statement, but some kiddos like to write their answers in a story style.
The poster size can be projected on your SMART board or can be printed off for groups. My kiddos LOVE this. I have laminated several pieces of chart paper (one for each group) and have the kids sit around it with dry erase pens and solve together. Something about using dry erase markers is just super motivating for kids. ;)
Here's a summary of the three levels. There is a poster size for each level, but I just included one as an example.
To get one week for free, I have a free sample of my September problems for you here! :)
The year long bundle is available for purchase here:
And the individual months are available here:
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