ORDER OF OPERATIONS

We began with this guy to see how many students remembered the order of operations. I polled the class to get their answers. Instead of giving the correct answer, we watched a brain pop video.

After the video I worked the above problem. In the first class no one had given the correct answer. They all began talking a bit when they saw my answer. I heard "please excuse my dear aunt sally" and "she divided before she multiplied."

We watched the video again and I told everyone to listen very carefully for the rules. Many students realized very quickly.

I then explained that the reason we need to excuse Aunt Sally is because she is misleading. Students are typically lead to believe that multiplication is to be done before division and addition is to be completed before subtraction. This is untrue.

To help us remember correctly all students drew this organizer in their math journal.