Year 6 Problem Solving Unit

A complete Year 6 Mathematics unit for modelling, solving and justifying practical multi-step problems involving operations, rational numbers, percentages and money.

Full Description

Give Year 6 students a clear, repeatable process for approaching practical problems. This complete Mathematics unit teaches students to read for the question, sort relevant from irrelevant information, formulate a mathematical model, estimate, solve efficiently, interpret the result and justify their decisions.

The five-lesson sequence combines explicit teaching, guided examples, partner reasoning and independent application. Students identify red herrings, use brackets to communicate order, calculate discounts and delivery charges, compare valid strategies, interpret remainders and test answers for reasonableness. The final Community Market Challenge asks students to model costs, income and profit before evaluating the strengths and limitations of their approach.

The package includes editable PowerPoint teaching and quiz decks, a colour classroom display, two hands-on resources, five differentiated two-page worksheets, integrated answer pages, a two-page assessment and a five-level rubric. It suits whole-class instruction, small-group support, independent practice, revision and summative assessment.

What’s Included

• Editable presentation — 19 slides
• Editable quiz — 22 slides with 10 question-and-answer pairs
• Unit Plan PDF — 31 pages
• The Modelling Loop colour classroom display
• Relevant or Red Herring? cards with sorting and recording mat
• Strategy Showdown game board and challenge cards
• Five differentiated two-page worksheets with answer pages
• Community Market Challenge assessment with answer pages
• Five-level landscape rubric

Learning Focus

• Formulate and solve practical problems using mathematical modelling
• Distinguish relevant information from red herrings
• Select and combine operations, representations and efficient strategies
• Work with natural numbers, rational numbers, percentages and financial contexts
• Estimate and check whether answers are reasonable
• Interpret remainders, units, constraints and rounding decisions
• Compare approaches and communicate justified conclusions

Classroom Use

Use the presentation for explicit whole-class teaching and guided examples. Run Relevant or Red Herring? as a collaborative sorting activity and Strategy Showdown for paired or small-group practice. Assign the two-page worksheets in sequence or select support, core and extension tasks for different groups. Use the editable quiz for review and formative assessment, then complete the Community Market Challenge and five-level rubric as the summative task.

Formats, Counts and Answers

Includes PDF and editable PPTX files: a 31-page Unit Plan, 19-slide presentation and 22-slide quiz. Twelve answer pages are included, with suggested responses for open-ended items where appropriate.

Digital Product and Licence

This is a digital teaching product; no physical item will be shipped. Purchase permits use by one teacher with their own students in accordance with the Sukindi single-user licence. Files may not be shared, resold, uploaded publicly or redistributed.