About This Lesson
Before the lesson consider how you might want to pair students for this activity. You can either pair them heterogeneously to ensure the same “pace” among the groups, or you can pair them up homogeneously so that students who are fast finishers are paired together and they can get to the challenge activity. This will also allow you to provide extra attention to groups who need additional support. Take some time to explain how a scavenger hunt works. You will have set up the cards (out of order once you cut them out) all around the room. They can be taped on different tables, walls, counters, etc…. Each pair of students will begin at a card. They should ignore the top part of the card and just solve the equation at the bottom. It will be important for them to record the original equation on their recording sheet and show all of their steps/work. When they finish the problem, they will move about the room to find another card that has the answer they found on the top and highlighted in gray. Once they find it, they will solve that problem following the same procedure as described above. If they cannot find their answer they have made a mistake, and they should redo their problem to see if they can find their error. They will complete this process until they return to their original card which means they are finished!
Also remind students that in fifth grade we need to know how to write mixed numbers as a whole number and a fraction. So if they get an answer like 253, they would need to rename it. Work this one out with them and leave it on the board as a reminder while they “hunt”
