Key Question
How many miles did the
Martinez family travel
each day?
Learning Goal
solve a multi-step word problem
to determine the number of miles
traveled by the Martinez family
each day.
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© 2009 AIMS Education Foundation
The Martinez family went on a 500-mile car trip that took five days. To make the drive
more enjoyable, the family drove a short distance the first day. The second day they
added 20 miles to the first day’s distance. On each following day they added 20 miles to
the previous day’s distance.
How many miles did the family travel each day?
Show your work in the space below. Be ready to share your problem-solving strategies
with others in the class.
Challenge: Using what you learned from the above problem, find the number of miles
traveled each day for a 10-day trip of 1,000 miles using the same travel plan—driving
a short distance the first day and then adding 20 miles to each previous day’s distance.
Show your work on the back of this page.
SOLVE IT! 5th
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© 2009 AIMS Education Foundation
Connecting Learning
1. How many miles did the
Martinez family travel
each day?
2. What methods did you use to
find this answer?
3. How do your group’s strategies
compare to the strategies used
by other groups?
SOLVE IT! 5th
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© 2009 AIMS Education Foundation