Sticking to the Math Practices

With the state assessments past us, I needed to get the students back into learning mode.
Using a problem solving cooperative activity, we were able to tackle 6 of the 8 math practices.

The activity includes clues for five puzzles.
The clues are enough to get the right answer,
But not so straight forward that there is no challenge involved.

The rules?
Students pass out the clues...one or two per student.
Students take turn reading the clues and then building or drawing the answer together as a group.
Students are also responsible for checking their clues periodically to make sure the final answer fits.

The math practices?
1.  Perseverance - When solving problems where the answer is not immediately seen, students tend to get frustrated.  This activity is great because it teaches perseverance within a group setting so students can keep plugging away.
2.  Reasoning - Students must reason between the clues and "read between the lines" in some cases to get get the right answer.
3.  Justification - Students must be able to justify their thinking in their final answer and how it relates to each clue.
4.  Math Model - A model is made to represent all the clues.
5.  Tools - In the activity that we used, toothpicks were the only tools needed.
6.  Precision - If attention to the clues was not addressed, the final answer would not be correct.  Precision is a must!