Day110--How Many Sheep and Hogs?

We were doing some math problems from Ray's Higher Arithmetic yesterday, and one of them was about a man buying sheep and hogs. He bought the same number of sheep as hogs. The sheep were each $7 and the hogs each $6. The total amount of money he spent was $1482. So how many sheep and hogs did he buy? I always want to set up a problem algebraically, but logic will do too right? Rachel decided she'd just divide $1482 by 6 1/2 and then by 2. Logical.

I never even thought of that though. First I tried 7S + 6H = 1482, but I knew something was wrong with that. Then I realized that since the number of sheep equalled the number of hogs, they could be the same variable. So I ended up with 7S + 6S = 1482. That worked, but how important is it that people set it up that way? I mean adults that aren't in school.

I texted the problem to Kamille, and she divided 1482 by 6 then by 7 and found the average of those numbers and divided by two. So why do we have a fit when our kids can't (or don't want) to set up an equation? Do most of us do that to solve actual problems? Well ok, I do; but that may be because I've been teaching my kids math for years. I'm not sure I would have otherwise. Sure, they need to learn to do it for school, but maybe we should praise their ability to be logical about it too. After all, that will serve them well in adulthood. And if we get excited that they can do it logically, they might just get more excited about trying it the way we want them to.

Sam's been sick today. He's got a cold, and sat around in the recliner all day without getting up. And my head hurts. Lovely day huh? The girls were tired too, so we didn't have school. We watched Johnny Tremain and CNN10 for students. Also, the girls and I sewed and stuffed 18 fabric hearts that we volunteered to help with for a church activity. Plus we watched  a Hallmark movie and some Dick Van Dyke Show episodes. Thank goodness I made tons of chicken and dumplings for dinner last night. We had it for breakfast and dinner today. Cake for lunch!

See you next week!