Some of the Iowa State “problems of the week” are great to share with kids

Saw a tweet about a really nice collection of problems yesterday:

Looking for good math problems? The mathematics dept at Iowa State University has been asking its students weekly math problems for years. Here they are with solutions. https://t.co/KnsEquEtTJ

— math prof (@mathematicsprof) April 2, 2018

As I clicked through a few of the problems last night, I thought that several (though definitely not all!) would be nice ones to share with kids. When my older son got home from school today I asked him about the problem from January 8th, 2018:

Here’s what he had to say – it is a really nice solution:

Next we moved on to the 2nd problem from January 2018:

He walked away before we could start solving this one . . . . 🙂

Update:

When my younger son got home from school I asked him the same question. His work shows what a kid thinking through a math problem can look like:

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