First Day...ALL 8th Graders

What a great great day!
Don't you just love the first day of school?
Everything is new and clean...
Friendships are reunited,
And it's a whole new year of learning new things!
LOVE IT!

Today we started with one of my favorite problems.
The Locker Problem.

There are 20 lockers in one hallway of Reno Valley Middle School.  In preparation for the beginning of school, the janitor closed all of the lockers and put a new coat of paint on the doors, which are numbered from 1 to 20.
When the 20 students from Mrs. McCabe's class returned from summer vacation, they decided to celebrate by working off some energy.  They came up with a plan:  The first student ran down the row of lockers and opened every door.  The second student started with locker #2 and closed every second door.  The third student started with locker #3 and changed the state of every third locker door.  The fourth student started with locker #4 and changed the state of every fourth locker door, the fifth student started with locker #5 and changed the state of every fifth locker door, and so on, until all 20 students had passed by the lockers.


Students worked on the problem together in their groups,

and some worked independently to find the answer.

We learned that...

1)  there are many methods to solving the same problem.

2)  it's okay to make mistakes.

3)  and that everyone learns in a different way.  Some are independent thinkers and need time on their own to think about the problem.  Some like to talk about the math and work together with others.

To extend this lesson at home, ask your student which lockers remained open (hint:  there are 4 open lockers).  What kind of patterns do you see in your answer?  How can this help you figure out which lockers will be open if there are 200 lockers in the hallway?

Have a great weekend!
See you Monday.