SOLVING ALGEBRAIC EQUATIONS - ADDITION

 Here is our current target. This will stay up until we have mastered addition, subtraction, multiplication, & division equations.

To get everyone ready to solve equations we began by working some very simple number sentence problems like:

Students were quick to tell me the answer was 4. I then asked them to explain why the answer was 4 and to be able to tell how they figured this out. Here are their answers

• I counted up from 5 to 9
• I subtracted 9 - 5

All perfect answers. I explained that the subtraction was the best choice because not always are we able to count up easily because of fractions, decimals, or really big numbers.

We then inserted a variable into a number sentence problem and students realized they had been thinking algebraically for a long time. 

For our 1st day working on addition equations, my main goal was getting students to show their work correctly. So I showed two examples with work shown. This is what I expect to see on their homework.