Makin' Mud Cloth Progress!

Here are a few sneak peaks of the Mud Cloth progress we made this week in art...

This is where we STARTED!

See those authentic West African patterns and colors...

Shopping for Salt Slabs

An Ancient Mali math challenge we solved this week...


You need to buy six salt slabs for your family. You arrive at the first salt mine to find that each slab of salt will cost you nine gold pieces. At the second salt mine a few miles away two slabs cost 19 gold pieces. Which is the better deal? Should you buy six salt slabs from the first mine or the second mine? 


Everyone had his or her own strategy for solving. No two strategies were exactly the same, but we found out that some were more efficient than others. 

Rhyane had an interesting strategy we'd never seen before...

Max used a key and skip-counting to figure out the prices.
He challenged himself to write a paragraph to explain
his process and which deal he thought was the best.

Henry explains his thinking

Everyone agreed Henry's strategy was neat, organized,
and easy to understand. You can see how he has the price
for each number of salt blocks shown...

Macy also used an efficient method with string
math to find both price totals