Math Fun and Problem Solving

Selena and I decided to play a game yesterday. We started out with just the two of us and some buttons. I gave her an even number of buttons and she divided them up between the two of us. I then gave her an odd number of buttons and then when we had one button left she had to figure out how we could solve this problem. Her idea was to add another person. She grabbed a little doll to represent Papa.

It wasn’t very long before she realized that this wasn’t working out very well either. I again asked her how we might solve this problem. Her idea was to add another person. She ran off to her bedroom and came out with yet another little person to add to our game.

Let’s just say she was a wee bit surprised when this happened.

She suddenly realized if she added one more person everyone would have the same number of buttons.

I had so much fun just watching her experiment, and try new ideas to make this work out. The only rule I had was she could not add more buttons or take any away from her pile. She had to figure out how she could divide them evenly among the people.