Unprecedented!

Lori showed up tonight bearing a bag of tights and tank tops for Whitney (they're sizes aren't too far apart!) and ended up staying for dinner and what turned out to be an unprecedented night of fun (not that we haven't had fun before, just not this kind).

While eating dinner I told them about a huge math victory I had today, and how great I felt when I found out I'd solved this math problem correctly. They were intrigued (particularly Landon because this is a 7th grade math problem) so after dinner I typed up the story problem (I'd written in my notebook because I was so pleased with myself I wanted to document it) and had them all try to solve it.


Here's the problem:

Tyrone bought a bag of marbles. 1/4 of the marbles were blue, 1/8 were green and 1/5 of the remainder were yellow. If there were 24 yellow marbles, how many marbles did he buy?


I had a couple moments of panic as their pencils flew, for I feared they would solve the problem easily and my victory would be shamed. Instead, they all struggled to find the answer; working for about 15 minutes until Landon eventually figured it out. The way he figured it out had nothing to do with the way I figured it out or how the teacher ended up showing the class, but he still got it right (the boy has some serious math skills).


I was so happy that it didn't end up being easy for them. Lori said there were problems like this on the GRE!


After they stopped trying to figure it out, Landon explained it to them, then I showed them the way I had figured it out.


Apparently working that problem out felt like a game, so we cracked open my PreAlgebra book and I read problems to them and they raced to solve them. This was great practice for me as well because the problems I read them were from the homework of a class I help in (the answers are in the back of the book). I feel much more comfortable with the material now.


Whitney was in the tub for about an hour of our math evening, and was shocked to find us still doing math problems when she got out! She said, "You're sitting there eating popcorn and doing math?!" We were equally shocked, but it really was fun. Lori pointed out that, "It's fun because we don't have to do it."

**Can you solve this problem?
Have you ever had an evening like this?
Am I'm becoming a math nerd? (I hope so!)**

P.S. Yes, Randy is wearing a bib and Lori is wearing an apron (so was I) because we had spaghetti for dinner.

Comment Window Tidbit: Today was a much better day (up again) so I'm feeling way better than I was when I wrote that post yesterday. I appreciate all the kind comments and insights, it's nice to know I'm not alone.