We are excited to share the May release of Magma Mondays, with three new problems per grade band.
Each set is intentionally sequenced. The first problem gives students a clear way in. The second asks them to manage more complexity. The third surfaces structure that is not immediately obvious.
May focus: Justifying and Convincing
In previous months, Magma Mondays have asked students to find their way to an answer. This month, we are asking something different.
The shift is intentional. The work this month begins after students arrive at an answer.
Once a student is sure they are correct, can they make someone else sure too? Can they walk a classmate through their reasoning out loud? Can they put the same argument on paper in a way that holds up without them in the room to explain it?
These are not the same skill. A student can be confident, even right, and still struggle to communicate why. May's problems are designed to make space for that work. They resolve to clean numeric answers, but the answers alone are not the goal. The goal is the language students use to defend them, both in conversation with peers and in writing.
Check out this 6-8 grade problem:
A student might quickly say 15 times 14, which gives 210. The conversation that follows is where the math lives. A classmate notices that they shook hands with someone, and that person also shook hands with them. Was that one handshake or two? Now the student has to explain, in their own words, why their first answer counted every handshake twice. Then they have to write that argument down in a way that would convince someone who was not part of the conversation.
That gap between knowing and explaining is what we want students to spend time inside this month.
Launching a May problem:
Assign these problems in Quiz Mode so that students don’t receive immediate feedback
Give students quiet time to commit to an answer before any discussion
Ask students to explain their thinking to a partner out loud before writing anything
Have students write a short justification a classmate could read and follow without asking questions
When two students disagree, ask each one what evidence would change their mind
Resist confirming the answer. Let the class build the argument together
Later this month, we will share examples of student writing and discussion, including moments where students refined their explanations after hearing how a peer interpreted them.
Magma Mondays this month are designed to help students see that having the right answer is only part of doing mathematics. Being able to communicate why, in writing and out loud, is the rest.