February 28, 2022.
Today’s warm-up was a number talk. Students were shown a food order flashed on the front board for approx. 3-5 seconds. Students were then asked to tell me how many of each item they saw on the board.
We talked about the importance of organizing our food items into categories. Next, we defined “like terms” and looked at some examples and non-examples.
After we finished with our definitions, I showed the class the Mad TV fast-food clip. Again, another great conversation starter about the importance of grouping like terms.
Next, we tied in subtracting terms. I asked the class if I could call the apples A and the bananas B to shorten up what I was writing on the board. I think they could see that we were moving to algebra.
I gave students an open-ended question where I showed them a trinomial and asked them to see if they could give me a different starting expression with at least 6 terms. I showed the class an organizational chart that might be helpful. Here are some student examples.
Next, we brought out the manipulatives and played around with algebra tiles. I gave students three expressions to model and simplify. First, they showed me their model with the algebra tiles and then modeled a simplified expression with the help of their organizational chart.
We had some time left, and I put the class into random groups using cards and had them work on predicting patterns at the VNPS (large whiteboards).
Students were given 3 patterns and revealed stage1, then stage 2, etc. Their task was to predict what the next pattern would be. Some used images and others used numbers to demonstrate their thinking. We eventually worked through and revealed all of the stages.
We talked about the patterns that were linear and those that were non-linear. We discussed the characteristics and talked about the patterns that each group noticed.
I reminded the class of our upcoming quiz tomorrow and for the remaining of the period, students worked on a couple of Boom Card decks to reinforce the concepts learned in class.
That’s it for today.
I hope something here was able to help you on your teaching journey.
Have a wonderful day!