Developing A Story Problem For Your Students To Solve

When presenting math concepts to elementary students, I always try to make as many real connections as possible.  One of the math strategies I apply when developing a story problem for my students is to use the real names of my students in the story problem.  Students form a mental picture of an actual student in their classroom being part of a math story problem.  This helps students understand this whole meaning of how numbers are used in everyday situations.

The following is a 1st grade math story problem I developed using that strategy.  :

Karen is the owner of 18 cows.  She has 7 brown cows, 3 black cows, 2 white cows and the rest of the cows are both brown and black.  How many cows are both brown and black?

Yall come back now to view student work on this math story problem!!!