Happenings in my Classroom

This week in teaching math I had an "ah ha" moment. At the beginning of the year, I had to teach the students what a situation and a solution equation was, which was really hard, because I had no clue how to do it myself and then to have to teach the kids how to do it! Oh My!
Well after 3 months of not seeing it, they reintroduced it in the math program and I finally got it. I could only wish that I would have seen this at the beginning of the year, because then maybe the kids would have gotten something out of what I was teaching, like they did today, rather than listening to me drone on!!
And for all of you that want to know what they are here is an example (at least to my bestest understanding):

Mike has 10 cars. Molly has some cars. If they put them all together they will have 21 cars together. How many cars does Molly have?

Situation equation: 10 + C = 21 cars (cause it's mike's cars plus molly's cars, which are currently unknown so I put "C" to hold th spot equals 21 cars)

Solution equation: 21 cars - 10 cars = C C= 11 cars ( then you actually do the problem)

See I know you all understand now too!