Level A
Grades 2 - 4

Level B
Grades 3 - 5

Level C
Grades 4 - 6

International
Version

Level D
Grades 5 - 7

International
Version

Not Yet Available

Not Yet Available

What If Kids Actually Liked Solving 
Math Word Problems????

Problem solving is one of the most important, yet most neglected, areas of math instruction. Many math skills are relatively easy to teach, but teaching kids how to think through a problem in a logical manner is most definitely NOT easy! Yet why should we teach math at all if our students can’t apply their knowledge to everyday life?

What if you could significantly improve your students’ problem- solving abilities in just 15 minutes a day? A mere 15 minutes per day adds up to 45 hours of instruction on problem solving! Even 10 minutes a day would result in 30 hours of problem-solving instruction. What if you found a method that involved very little preparation yet provided a clear and sequential approach to problem-solving? And what if your students began to look forward to those 10 to 15 minutes of math instruction? What if they actually enjoyed the problems and asked you for MORE????

No need to wonder . . . Daily Math Puzzlers is that program! These math problems were field-tested by dozens of teachers all over the world, and their kids were actually asking for more! The program helped students develop confidence in their problem-solving abilities.  As a teacher, you’ll enjoy the step-by-step instructions for reviewing calculator skills, teaching problem-solving steps and strategies, and providing a variety of challenging and engaging math problems. 

The Daily Math Puzzler Power Pack 
is  more than a book - 
it's a complete problem-solving program!

What's in each Daily Math Puzzler Power Pack?

• Over 70 pages of lesson plans, teaching strategies, and blackline masters to implement a Daily Math Problem Solving program

• Step-by-step directions for introducing your students to calculator skills, including Calculator Practice activities, several Calculator Tests and Answer Keys, Reteaching and Enrichment activities such as Calculator Confusion and Blast Off

• Mini-posters of the Problem-Solving Steps and Strategies

• Easy directions for introducing kids to basic problem-solving steps and strategies

• 20 Problem-Solving Worksheets and an Answer Key

• Alternative Ideas for using the Problem-Solving Worksheets

• Templates for creating your own Problem-Solving Worksheets

How does the Daily Math Puzzler Program work?

Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to find time to teach problem solving? Most math textbooks have problem-solving strategy lessons in every chapter, but somehow I could never find enough time to teach those lessons. I knew that problem-solving was important, but in the interests of sticking to an instructional timeline, I ended up skipping those lessons because it was "time to move on." 

So I decided to create my own math problem-solving program, one that I could implement in just 10 to 15 minutes a day. I knew I would need something simple yet effective, a program that didn't require me to search for new word problems every day. I developed and used this program last year, and I knew I had a winner when I saw my results on our state math exam. WOW! At the beginning of the year, only 62% of my students had passed the previous year's math exam. At the end of the year, 87% passed! This year I'm going for 100%! 

After experiencing those results, I knew I had to share my program. The basic plan centers on the Daily Math Puzzler worksheet which has four word problems that can be solved in a variety of ways. (View and print the samples on the right.) You distribute the Activity Page (fancy name for worksheet!) on Monday, and students work out the answer to the first problem. You quickly spot-check the answers and circle the "check plus" symbol for anyone who found the correct answer and showed all their work. On Tuesday, you teach a brief mini-lesson on how to solve that problem. Students correct their answers and move on to the next problem. If you follow that sequence, you'll wrap up the fourth problem on Friday. Simply collect the worksheets and assign a grade based on accuracy and class participation. It's that easy!

What's unique about the Daily Math Puzzler program?

The Word Problem Activity Pages and the overall program design  make it different from anything on the market. It's simple to use, and everything you need is included in the Power Pack.

Word Problem Activity Page features include:

• Each worksheet covers an entire week's worth of problems

• The layout of the worksheet encourages students to demonstrate their thinking with pictures, words, charts, or symbols

• Each word problem has a simple built-in grading component consisting of a checkmark, a check minus, and a check plus. When you spot-check student work each day, circle the appropriate symbol. On Friday, it only takes a moment to assign a weekly grade.

Program Design features include:

• An optional introduction to Calculator Skills, including lessons, quizzes, reteaching activities, and a calculator game

• An optional introduction to Word Problem Steps and Strategies, including daily lessons, mini-posters, and blackline masters for each strategy

• A letter to send home to parents explaining the program

• Strategies for using the Activity Pages in other ways if you don't want to implement daily word problem practice

• 20 Activity Pages with a variety of word problems that cover measurement, geometry, graphing, probability, and more!

• Templates for creating your own Word Problem Activity Pages (Template currently available in Microsoft Word and Publisher formats)

How are the Word Problems Leveled?

Each book contains a set of problems designed for a particular grade level span, but the levels overlap due to student differences from school to school. Click on each link below to view sample worksheets from that particular level. When the series is complete, the Daily Math Puzzler program will contain the following levels:

Which level is right for my class?

If you are trying to find out where to start your students in the program, download the free Problem Solving Assessment Power Pack and give them a quick pretest. This assessment will quickly show you your students' strengths and weaknesses in problem solving. 

Why buy Digital books?

Have you started purchasing digital books? If not, I think you'll like the advantages of the digital format. First of all, having a digital book means less paper is wasted unless you print out the entire book. Personally, I would recommend you scroll through the document and just print the pages you need. Also, you never have to take that whole book to the copier to make copies for your class! Just print copies of the page you want and you are ready to go. You can rearrange the pages to fit your needs, and you can make hard copies of the activities you like and file them with your other teaching resources on that topic. Finally, you'll never misplace it as long as you create a folder on your desktop for your downloads. Why not make a folder called Laura's Power Packs and save your Power Packs right into that folder?

Note: The Daily Math Puzzler Power Pack is in PDF format and is not able to be modified in any way. If you want to change it, you'll have to use the trick every teacher knows - cut and paste! However, the template files are available in Microsoft Word and Publisher format when you purchase this item.