Solving Shoe Sale problem

We read a book called Centipede's 100 Shoes by Tony Ross about a little centipede who stubbed his toe and decided he needed to get shoes to protect his feet.

After having to spend most of the day tying his shoes he decides that maybe he doesn't want the shoes after all so he sells them to other bugs. He sells his shoes to 5 spiders, 4 beetles, 2 woodlice, 1 grasshopper and 2 worms. Our problem for the past 2 days has been to figure out if the author got the right combination of critters right to get rid of all 100 shoes. This allowed us a chance to 

I didn't give any specific procedures that students had to follow to solve the problem because I wanted to see what strategies they could attempt on their own. We laid out lots of manipulatives like blocks, hundreds charts, 10 frames, etc. and students went to work. They were allowed to work with a partner and some students even chose to do it in a small group as well.  

It was awesome to see how students approached the problem. Some used coloured blocks to represent the different animals and their legs, others used a hundreds chart to track their combinations. We will continue to work on this problem and I will attach some pictures of the process!