Making Story Problems Meaningful and Fun

Students use Wixie to show their understanding of multiplication relating to word problems.

Student project

As an Instructional Technology Resource Teacher in Hanover County, Virginia, it's my job to help teachers integrate technology into the curriculum. When the 3rd grade teachers in Hanover County wanted to find a fun and meaningful way to show understanding of multiplication as it relates to word problems, we decided to have students author their own.

We decided that Wixie would be the perfect choice to make this happen. Students have been using Wixie with me since Kindergarten, so they are familiar with how to use the tools.

We began by giving them time to explore clip art resources in the Stickers library and stamp tool to give them lots of ideas for their problems. Students then used paper and pencil to work out the details and write their final word problems.

Students typed their story problem first and used Wixie’s tools, stickers, and stamps to create their pictures. Final products were saved to be shown as a slide show in the classroom on the LCD projector. Students also printed a copy of their story problems which we later made into class books. These books were shared among the grade level so that students could solve the problems in small groups or on their own.

Barking Dogs Sample

This lesson allowed students to put their thinking, creativity, and communication skills to work! Students were very engaged and really enjoyed creating their own individual story problems. They helped each other use the tools and find pictures. The teachers enjoyed watching their students create and show their knowledge of the multiplication process.

I have done similar story problem lessons with first- and second-grade students using addition and subtraction. These students were just as engaged as the third-graders, and the finished products were fantastic!

Jennifer Hicks

by Jennifer Hicks

Wixie
Advertisement
Storytelling

The art of digital storytelling

Get Started with Rubrics

Make It Matter! Move from projects to project-based learning

Moving up Bloom's Taxonomy

Moving up Bloom's Taxonomy

Advertisement
Creativity tools and math

Making in Math

Wixie on a stack of Chromebooks
Getting Chromebooks?
Stay creative with Wixie!

More sites to help you find success in your classroom

Wixie

Share your ideas, imagination, and understanding through writing, art, voice, and video.

Rubric Maker

Create custom rubrics for your classroom.

Pics4Learning

A curated, copyright-friendly image library that is safe and free for education.

Wriddle

Write, record, and illustrate a sentence.

Creative Educator

Professional Learning

About Us

Get the Creative Educator Newsletter

Topics

Creativity

Digital Storytelling

21st Century Classrooms

Project-based Learning

Teaching and Learning

Curriculum

Literacy

Literature

Informational Text

English Language Aquisition

STEM

Lessons

Language Arts

Math

Science

Social Studies

Visual Arts

Add me to the Creative Educator email list!