Here is a math activity that can serve as a quick brain teaser or an ongoing whole-class activity to use throughout the school year.
First, if you aren’t familiar with what I call Triple-A Analogies, watch the video tutorial below, first shared in this post. It’s a great place to start and you’ll find ready-to-share resources to use with students. However, It may actually be easier to try kid-created analogies first.
| IMPORTANT NOTE: Students are accustomed to number analogies having only one correct answer. On formal tests at this level, this is the case. Students gifted in math would be able to distinguish these two very different formats, but you might want to consider whether it may cause confusion for some students before presenting these. |
VIDEO TUTORIAL
Once students understand the problem setup, the idea of creating one is not much of a leap. In fact, students of all abilities can do this high-ceiling / low-floor activity (see Ian Byrd’s explanation of this here).
USE AS A CLASS ACTIVITY, a BRAINTEASER, or an ONGOING CHALLENGE
Below are some sample slides. Make a copy of the entire presentation HERE. Have students complete each one, explaining their thinking. Then challenge them to use more than one operation (➕➖✖️ ➗) to find other possible completions. Have students share answers and have the class determine the operations used. You may want to restrict them to two operations. You and your students can also make up your own open-ended analogies or return to these analogies and make them open-ended.
Possible answers are listed on a TEACHER PAGE found at a password-protected link. If you’d like to have access to all answer keys for activities on this site, please find the form to subscribe on the Welcome Page.
I think this would make a great interactive bulletin board as well. Display one each week, and have students add answers on sticky notes. As notes are added, students attempt to figure out how each answer has been found. To keep the “game” going, have students who have figured out other students’ responses add a sticky note (different color) next to each answer with their initials on the front and their solution on the back.
NOTE: If you try this as a bulletin board activity, please take a picture so that we can add it to the Bulletin Board Ideas page!
When sharing, students will come to see that the same operation can be written in different forms. In fact, it’s fun to see if they can write complicated operations for a simple analogy. Let’s say a student uses one simple operation, as in this example.
EXAMPLE: 4 : 16 :: 6 : _____
Answer: 24 ~ The student who shared this answer simply multiplied by 4 to get 24. You can then challenge the class to find a more complicated way to get that answer – kind of a Rube Goldberg math equation idea! How about dividing by 2, then multiplying by 8? Playing around with more complicated responses will reinforce number sense (e.g. can you find a more complicated way to multiply by 4?)
Let us know if you try this with your class. We do a lot of sharing in our Facebook group, so join us if you’d like to discuss this activity further.
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I love Triple “A” Analogy! My students are familiar with number analogies with having only one correct answer. This will be a great activating strategy to use for advanced learners. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for your comments. I hope your students enjoy them.