Equivalent Expressions Hunt

Today I cleared away all the seats and we worked from the floor. Students were given an expression and a grid with 20 squares to fill in. Kiddos tested their understanding of simplifying expressions and equivalent expressions today. They would pick a paper wad and then simplify it, and then decide if it was equivalent to what they had or not inorder to put it in the correct spot on their sheets. They were engaged the entire hour. 


For those that did not finish, I have a day 2 version of this activity for them to complete.

EQUIVALENT EXPRESSION

Today was spent trying to make sure everyone understands that equivalent expressions do not have to look like each other. (Sometimes they will, but not always). However, they do have to get the same value when we substitute in the same value for a variable. (This is a great lifesaver if a student is unsure if they are equivalent). Also, when they are both simplified they will look the same.

KAHOOT TO HELP - (MAYBE)

Students love Kahoot - I had to be out for jury duty so I had students play Kahoot without me and borrowed a premade one from the site. Turns out all the answers are red. (Oh well, hope they at least understood why they were all correct)

FACTORING WITH THE DISTRIBUTIVE PROPERTY - AKA BACKWARDS DISTRIBUTIVE PROPERTY

On our path to making sure we can identify and create equivalent expressions we had to first make sure we can undo the distributive property. Here is a copy of a students notebook.

You might notice the words numbered 1 through 14. I wrote the definition that I needed students to learn on a set of note cards. One word per card, I handed them out all around the room. Told everyone to number their paper to 14. Students then read their cards and everyone tried to write down words as they heard them, we did this probably 10 times sometimes slow and sometimes fast to see how well we can listen (been a real problem lately). I then shared the message in paragraph form for those who had missed out on some of the words. Then following the paragraph were a few bullets of helpful information.

WAY WAY WAY BEHIND

So very far behind in updating this blog. Since the last post the students have been working the following topics.

• Parts of an expression (term, coefficient, constant) - The definitions to each part were written on multiple pieces of paper. Far more than the students needed. They had to run to the pile and select a snowball (at the time we were expecting snow) and run back to their paper. If they did not have this information yet they were to add it to their grid notes page. If they did they wadded it back up and returned it to the pile and grabbed another. They could not open their ball until they were back at their spot. This was a great way to take notes and get some exercise in at the same time. Some classes made this in to a contest and were really excited to be the first, second, third ones finished.
  
  
  
      
  
  
   
  
   
  

Students the next day had an opportunity to practice the skill we were learning, throw things at me, the teacher, and earn bonus points.

The following day we played Kahoot to make sure we could identify the different parts of an algebraic expression. https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/ef62d905-f2e1-48d7-9001-b75cf1b6f166

• Giant expression - students were all given a term and asked to sort themselves, this was an introduction to combining like terms. Students were able to put themselves into groups based on the variable parts of their term. (FYI - I call that the “Party in the back”) Yes I referred to a mullet hair cut in class to help students understand terms and like terms.

• Sorting Like Terms Coloring Sheet - this activity keeps students busy for a while and allows them time to truly understand what like terms look like. For this assignment to be graded, students write a key on the back and then count the terms in each group. (major time saver)

• We made real life expressions out of stuff in the classroom. This was so very very helpful to help everyone understand that we did not have to know what “x” was or “m” and that we could combine the coefficients to make the expression more simple. 

• Distributive Property - I borrowed this prezi presentation 

Students have since done a lot of practice with the distributive property.