Math and Creative Writing

monkey photo via uc davis

Over at Mrs. Jump's class, students let their creativity shine while working on their math skills, for a morning warm up math routine. Give kids an answer to a problem. It's up to them to write a unique word problem that goes along with the answer. For example, Eight monkeys were munching on bananas in a banana tree. Three jumped out of the tree because they wanted to play. Two more monkeys followed them to join in the game. How many monkeys stayed in the tree to hog all of the bananas?

After they write their problem, have them draw an illustration. Then, another day or for homework, have kids create an original word problem and answer about anything they'd like. They trade their word problems with a friend (don't share answers!) and see if their buddy can solve it!