Start-Up Activity

Ask students what happens to markers when they are left out without caps on. (They dry out.) Have students pretend that their classmates keep forgetting to put the caps back on the classroom set of markers. Ask them how they can help solve the problem. Encourage many suggestions, anything from the simple to the outlandish. Afterward, pick three or four of the solutions, and have students vote for the best one.

Tell them that this type of thinking is called problem solving. And this chapter will help them learn a simple technique for solving little problems and big ones, too.