When and What? Every month students receive a challenging logical mathematical problems that I would like them to ATTEMPT to solve. Students are to complete their work in the journals they created in class at the beginning of the school year. Students may use pen/color pencil/ etc (as long as it doesn't bleed through the pages), draw pictures and get help from family members to try to solve each problem.

Why? - As students progress through math the types of problems they will begin to see will be multi-step, real world problems that require more than just simple calculations. Students need to be able to tackle any type of problem they may see, even if they think the problem is unsolvable. This helps students think logically and in a multitude of ways to get to a solution. It also pushes students to persevere through problems and not just go for the easy way out.

How is it graded? - A rubric for grading is attached in each students workbook, a copy may also be found on the PSJ page on my webpage. Students earn a letter grade A - D based on their work. Students who WRITE about WHAT they did and HOW they attempted to solve the problem earn higher letter grades. Students are NOT graded on if they get the correct answer the problem, these are tricky and I don't expect all the students to get them correct. Solution for each month's problem are displayed in my classroom after all student's booklets have been graded.