How to solve missing number problems

How do, Jed? Remember when we helped Major Ivor Lake from ‘Cupoftea’, when he needed help building a stone path across his duck pond?

Aye, Seth.

We knew we needed 32 stones to make the path and that there are four stones in every pack. But we didn’t know how many packs we needed.

Aye.

Using algebra I was able to find the value of the ‘y’. When you’re doing algebra, you have to get rid of the numbers on one side so that only the letter remains.

So, to do this, I had to do the opposite to times by four, which was divide by four. And because I did it on one side, I had to do it on t’other.

So… ‘y’ times four, divided by four equals ‘y’. And 32 divided by four equals eight.

So, there you have it, ‘y’ equals eight.

Jed then went for t’gear, didn’t you Jed?

Aye.

It was a ‘reet’ good job Jed.

Aye, ‘reet’ good.