Solving Equations

Hello Grade 6s!

Our 2nd week is nearly done. I don't know about you, but our time together so far has flown by for me!

Today we talked about two strategies for finding a missing number in an equation.

We talked about guess and check. If our equation was 163 = ___ + 49, we might guess the missing number is 100. We check this by adding 100 to 49. 100 + 49 = 149. The answer is too low. Next, we could try 115 as the possible missing number. We check again: 115 + 49 = 164. This answer is 1 more than what we need, so we know that the missing number is 114 (we took 1 away from 115).

Our second strategy is using the inverse operation. If we're trying to solve ____ ÷ 6 = 144, we use the INVERSE (or opposite) operation. We know that divison and multiplication are INVERSE operations, just as addition and subtraction are inverse operations.

So we use the numbers we know: 144 x 6 = the missing number. 144 x 6 = 864, so 864 is the missing number.

Questions? Post them here, and I will reply!

-Ms. Lewis.