The purpose of this activity is for students to consider a situation and think about all the mathematical questions they could ask about it. This process gives students a chance to make sense of the situation before they are asked to solve problems. Students might choose to write a multiplication equation like . Acknowledge that this equation represents this situation, but focus the discussion in the Activity Synthesis on division to connect to the work in the next section.

• “What information did we use in the problem?” (the number of guests at the party, the number of guests in Room A, the number of tables in Room B, the fact that the same number of guests sit at each table)
• “How could we record an equation with a letter for the unknown quantity that would represent the problem? Explain your reasoning.” ( . We had to find  to find out how many people are in Room B. We had to divide the number of people in Room B by 6 to find out how many guests are at each table. The g represents how many guests fit at each table in Room B.)
• Display:
• If students don’t use parentheses, say: “In this equation, we can use parentheses to show that we subtracted first.”
• “The parentheses show us that the subtraction is done first in the equation to represent the problem. Keep this in mind as you work on the next activity.”

The purpose of this activity is for students to solve two-step word problems using all four operations. Students can solve the problem first or write the equation first, depending on their preference. Encourage students to use parentheses if needed to show what is being done first in their equations.

When students make sense of situations to solve two-step problems they reason abstractly and quantitatively (MP2).

• For each problem, invite a student to share their equation and discuss how it represents the problem.
• Consider asking:
  • “Where do we see ______ from the problem in the equation?”
  • “What information from the situation did we need to solve the problem and write our equation?”
  • “How are parentheses used in the equation?”