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.