Is this very hard for year 2 or am I missing something

[witchwithallthetrimmings]

Maths homework problem, David eats half his sweets and then buys 16 more. He now has 36 how many did he have to start with?

I think you would just need to practice lots more of these type of questions, with different numbers for a child to understand how to work it out. once you explain to them how you are suppose to work it out, they should be able to do it without help.
My son found these type of questions hard in yr2, because he hadn't learnt doubling very well at that time.

Oh dear, I don't two part problems are "normal" in my Y2 class at all.

My dd Yr 2, would struggle with this. I would definately have to talk her through it, but I am pretty sure she wouldn't 'get it' without quite a lot of help.

The math would be OK, it would be understanding the question. Took me a few minutes to think it through too!!!!

My DD would be able to do this, but he would have to really think it through. This is the sort of problem solving that the very top group in my DD's year 2 would do. Those who are working toards a level 3 in maths. 90% of his class would not be at this level.

Two step problems are L3.

Level 2:
? choose the appropriate operation when solving addition and subtraction problems, e.g.
? use repeated addition to solve
multiplication problems
? begin to use repeated subtraction or sharing equally to solve division problems
? solve number problems involving money and measures, e.g.
? add/subtract two-digit and one-digit numbers, bridging tens where necessary in contexts using units such as pence, pounds, centimetres

Level 3:
? use mental recall of addition and subtraction facts to 20 in solving problems involving larger numbers, e.g.
? choose to calculate mentally, on paper or with apparatus
? solve one-step whole number problems appropriately
? solve two-step problems that involve addition and subtraction

I would say that is a level three question (quite a hard one 3b/3a perhaps)

I have seen questions like that on year 6 sats papers (that test from level 3-5)

I suppose the higher ability children in year 2 may well be working on level 3.

'Took me a few minutes to think it through too!!!!' ... and other such responses.
The thing is and the point I was trying to make is that the 'problem' becomes very easy to 'see' if you present it visually. if you do that, then the problem is likely to become much more obvious.
The other thing is that simply reeling off a list of levels targets doesn't actually help people who want to help their children.

Too hard. Need to start easier and build up if questions like this.

But equally, telling the OP how to go about explaining the problem doesn't answer her original question, which was whether this was normal level maths for Y2.

I'd assume it was extension work, although it's an odd two-part problem to jump into if they don't normally do them as it involves simple division/fractions (the "half") rather than just addition and subtraction.

I just asked my yr 2 (top group maths) and she said "that's hard - I don't know where to start" - once explained and talked through she got ot the correct answer but she couldn't have done it on her own.

Sounds like what dd2 was doing last year in year 2. She enjoyed doing that sort of one more than just standard sums.

Yup, definitely hard. As others have said, it's being able to extrapolate what the maths sum is from the words.

It's a good chance for parents to explore with DC how to do it. I think it's a good problem, especially if they can't do it on their own. Our school expects parents to help with homework if children need that help.

I am a teacher and have Yr2 experience. A large part of Maths is unpicking word problems by breaking the question into manageable chunks and ascertaining the required operation (add, subtract, divide, multiply). It is something I would expect the top few children to grasp but it would be beyond the realms of comprehension for others.

That's the sort of question the higher ability children in Y2 were working on when DS was there - it would probably be an extension question.

It seems quite hard to me. Ds is in year 2, this week he had 270 times table questions. Not hard just veerrryyyy time consuming and a little bit boring!

Hi witchwithallthetrimmings

In Y2 my DD2 and previously DD1 (now Y4) had similar questions but were given all the facts from the start of the process. So your problem

David eats half his sweets and then buys 16 more. He now has 36 how many did he have to start with?

would most likely have been presented as:

David had 40 sweets. He then ate 20. His Mum gave him 16 more. How many sweets does David have left.

This is actually the same problem but in a forward time line (starting at the beginning and ending with the final number - 36).

I think the difficulty is the backwards timeline. Soundswrite has great suggestions about how to deal with the original version of the problem. I suppose the question to ask is whether the school are trying to prepare your child for this style of question on the Y2 SATs?

The last bit of soundswrite's suggestion is in fact algebra - which may seem scary for Y2 - but in fact elements of pre-algebra are there in the curriculum all the time. If you have 10m how many cms is that? 100cm = 1m 100/ 1 = x/ 10. Multiply both sides by 10 and you get 1000 cm. Most Y2 children will encounter measurement conversion work.

I would say this is a slightly more difficult problem than my DDs had in Y2 - but perhaps the teacher has established that your DS can do the typical forward progress word problems, and so is introducing more complicated - out of sequence problems - to stretch and challenge him?

I reckon my Y2 DS could do it. But is it really setting a good example - i mean all those sweets???

Yes, OP, please complain to the school that this homework conflicts with their Healthy Eating policy...

HandMini Well done for getting "Extrapolate" in your post

Pastsellby, I didn't intend the algebra solution for the children. That bit was for the adults.
For those interested in the kind of approach that favours presenting children with concrete, visual problems, look for Singapore Maths products. Regardless of what the KS demands are, this approach is a very good way of combining procedural skills (2 X 2 = 4, 8 + 5 = 11, and harder) with conceptual understanding, i.e. understanding how it works and how to implement it.

Iamnotminterested yes seriously ... all of my Y2 class are familiar with what to do although some of them would need to use a numberline as SoundsWrite suggested to work out the answer and some would need to use a bead string or counters.

Just asked yr 2 DS (a bit unfairly actually as I just paused the kids tv and asked him without giving him a pen and paper ) and instantly he subtracted the 16 to get 20 then was a bit stumped about the half bit. His original answer was, in fact, 20. I had to cajole him a fair bit and in the end he got there (he went through 15 inexplicably and then 10 more understandably until he got there). He is top table in maths, so he tells me, but not extension work or anything so I would say hard but now I would expect him to answer a similar problem ok so perhaps a case of "easy when you know how".

Thanks everybody for all your comments, I was initially floored by it as I think of things like this as algebra problems, so a bit beyond ks1 I can see now that it is easy to think of it as going backwards through the problem, so undoing the last thing, then the penultimate thing and so on. So I was missing something and what a really good way of teaching algebra. Ds is the one of the best at maths in his year and needed my help, but I think this is the first time he has seen word problems like this

mrz I cannot believe that all of your Y2 class can do 2 part word problems. Sorry and all that.