The dreaded story problem. We know that kids sometimes grumble when it is time to apply their math skills in real situations. But knowing how to use information when trying to solve a math story is the point of learning math in the first place!
I start out my math class with a problem of the day. We do it together so that they can follow along if they are not ready to be independent, and I can see how much or little they understand about the problem and how to solve it.
I'm sure you have some students who will be able to just tell you the answer after reading it (yay!) but then comes the dreaded: show your work. In first grade we are still learning different ways to solve problems so I combine all the ways so that they can see how the information can be used to solve the problem in different ways.
This is an example of a completed story problem from one of my student's journals.
The document has editable fields so you can put in your students names. Print and cut them apart for students to glue into a notebook. Having the problem right in front of them is easier than reading it from the board.
Here are some more examples:
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