Word Problem Wednesday: Seashells

Are you a collector? What do you like to collect? Coins? Stuffed animals? Action figures?

In this week’s Word Problem Wednesday Eli is collecting seashells and dividing them up to share with friends. Exercise your math-muscle with Eli in this week’s challenge, and don’t forget to check back tomorrow for the solution!

Eli picks up 288 seashells at the beach. He divides them evenly among 12 boxes. Then he gives 7 boxes of seashells to Lincoln. How many seashells does Lincoln get?

Here's our solution: When Eli divides the 288 seashells into 12 boxes, he puts 288 ÷ 12 = 24 seashells in each box. Since Lincoln gets 7 boxes, he gets 24 × 7 = 168 seashells.

How does your solution match up with ours?

168 is a whole lot of seashells! What would you do with that many seashells? Do you think any of those shells were big enough for Eli or Lincoln to put to their ears and hear the ocean?