Advanced What's Under The Cup

Math is more fun if you make a game of it. But eventually games are no fun if they are too easy and present no challenge. They are also no fun if they are too hard. There is a game called "what's under the cup?" that many think is just for little kids.

The idea is to start easy then advance by degrees. You will find that pretty soon your students are doing some pretty "serious" algebra. The idea is to understand the concepts and the way you do that is obviously not to memorize a lot of rules and formula. In fact, you will see students begin to make up their own rules as they get better at playing "what's under the cup?"

At first problems like these pose a challenge as the students are learning to count, and can pose a problem for some students when these are first introduced in 5th or 6th grade. They get confused with "inverse addends" and "inverse functions", as well as rules about walking across the equals sign...just tell me what has to be under the cup.

Once this game becomes easy, you can move on to more advanced what's under the cup. Problem Solving is easy and you will see their thinking skills improve as they use their computation skills to start doing math via algebra. I thought this lesson was about 10 minutes long, turns out it's 25 minutes long. Times flies when your having math.



This was their first time playing advanced what's under the cup like this. The next time will be easier and the time after that easier still. Each time we play another concept can be introduced and other concepts reinforced. Look for more vids with other kids in the coming weeks where we start adding negative numbers...they will be on the advanced algebra page...

The video above will be added to the Problem Solving page. Which is about to undergo a revamp...or I may have to add a another page or two. Meantime you can search "Crewton Ramone Problem Solving" in your favorite search engine or on Youtube.

Here is a video that gives an overview for older students who don't have the luxury of taking one concept at a time. This is really advanced what's under the cup:



And the little boys can do this also...the game is called find stuff that's same on both sides...

So nice to have the luxury of time! When I made that video I had 10 minutes to get the point across and Youtube gave you one minute grace and I used every second of it. Now I can pause and blab about food and whatever bounces into their heads...and eventually you will see the boys doing some of the exact same problems you see in the second video. If you keep it simple and make it so the answer ends up being x equals a number they are actually easier than some of the problems in the first video...

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