Polynomials Activities

Looking for engaging factoring activities for your Algebra 1 or Algebra 2 students? Check out these creative and hands-on factoring games and puzzles that will help make factoring fun!

I love using X Puzzles to introduce factoring quadratics. These puzzles are also known as sum and product puzzles since the goal of the puzzle is to find the two numbers that have a given sum and product. Years ago, I found a set of 5 pages of X Puzzles. I can no longer find …

I am really liking these quadratic area puzzles from Chritsopher (Bow Tie Teacher on twitter) that are posted for free on TES. They are inspired by Naoki Inaba‘s Area Maze puzzles with a quadratic spin on things. For next year, I think I would like to do some sort of activity at the beginning of …

I’ve been a fan of this factoring puzzle for factoring quadratic trinomials since I worked through it at a Common Core workshop I attended (OGAP) in the summer of 2013. Over the last couple of days, I have been going back through these resources that I originally blogged about and giving each resource its own …

I shared this shared factors puzzle on twitter recently, but I thought I should share it on my blog as well. Shared Factors Puzzle Each side of the square shares a factor with each of its neighboring sides. Determine the missing values that make this statement true. This would be a great task for including …

I created this naming polynomials poster several years ago as a way to both remind my students of the rules for naming polynomials and to decorate my room with my favorite thing – math! Now that I’m reorganizing things on my blog since changing to my own domain name, I have realized that I have …

I gave this “Polly”nomial task to my Algebra 2 students. The results did not disappoint. And, it made grading a somewhat boring assignment much more interesting! A couple of months ago, my Algebra 2 students were working on polynomials. There was ~10 minutes left at the end of class, and they were in dire need …

For years, I’ve had it in the back of my mind and on many a to do list to create a typed version of my naming polynomials speed dating cards to share! My first set was created with index cards. I wrote the polynomials on the front of the index cards with magic marker. This …

I want to convince you why dividing polynomials using the box method is my favorite method for dividing polynomials. After taking a 2 year hiatus from teaching Algebra 2 to dabble in teaching physical science and chemistry, I’m back at it this year. One of the things I really missed about teaching Algebra 2 was …

I’m really pushing the box method this year in my Algebra 2 classes, so Christie Bradshaw’s area model puzzles were a perfect introduction to the box method before we jumped into factoring using the box method!

I created this adding and subtracting polynomials graphic organizer for my Algebra 1 students to glue in their interactive notebooks. Free Download of Adding and Subtracting Polynomials Graphic Organizer

This year I created a new writing polynomials in standard form graphic organizer and foldable for my Algebra 1 students to glue in their interactive notebooks. Then, we practiced taking polynomial expressions and writing them in standard form. I was a bit overambitious about how many examples we were going to get through. We ended …

I created this factoring quadratics foldable for my Algebra 1 students to glue in their interactive notebooks. I had to make a lot of compromises with this topic that made me sad. But, I just didn’t have the time I usually have for this topic. This was mainly due to losing a large amount of …

I created this multiplying polynomials foldable for my Algebra 1 students to complete and glue in their interactive notebooks. I’m experimenting this year with the “grid method” for multiplying polynomials. It’s exactly the same as the box method, but it just seemed to tie better to what we had been doing with multiplying polynomials with …

I created this naming polynomials practice sheet to give my students some much-needed practice naming polynomials. We glued the finished practice sheet in our interactive notebooks. We completed this practice sheet directly after our naming polynomials graphic organizer. I like this practice sheet because after I make up the first few polynomials to name, students …

After reviewing the definition of a polynomial, we completed this polynomial or not color coding activity. We glued the final results in our algebra interactive notebooks. If the expression was a polynomial, students colored it. If it was not a polynomial, they had to explain why. Free Download of Polynomial or Not Color Coding Activity

We began our polynomials unit in Algebra 1 with a frayer model. We wrote in the definition of a polynomial and the three characteristics polynomials cannot have. Students created 3 examples and non-examples of their own. Free Download of Polynomial Frayer Model Template

I’m here today to share some Roots Solutions Zeros X-Intercepts Posters. Yes, that is a mouthful. Yesterday, I started doing some serious planning for teaching Algebra 2 in less than a month! I’m at a new school that has adopted new textbooks, and I’m not exactly the biggest fan of the chosen Algebra 2 book. …

It’s quite a bit past Easter now, but you could still use this multiplying polynomials egg hunt activity if you don’t care about being relevant to a current holiday. 🙂 A few years ago, I picked up a bag of Easter eggs at a garage sale. I didn’t know exactly what I planned on using …

Last month, I shared a building polynomials activity that I created. Since then, numerous teachers have shared photos with me of their students completing the puzzle. This makes me super happy! Since that activity has proved to be so popular, I thought it was time to share another activity I created to go along with …

We broke out the algebra tiles in Algebra 1 this week to learn how to multiply polynomials. My students had never seen algebra tiles, so first I had to teach them how they work. I tried four different ways of introducing algebra tiles, and I’m really happy with the fourth iteration of my intro to …

The idea for this building and naming polynomials activity started out like many of my ideas do. I start thinking about the topic I’m teaching, and I ask myself “What if…?” This week, the topic was polynomials, and the question I asked myself was “What if I could create some sort of puzzle for polynomials?” …

I wasn’t quite sure what to blog about today, so I started looking through my drafts folder in Blogger.  I ran across this post on a question stack I created for factoring trinomials during Algebra 1’s unit on polynomials. I first blogged about this activity in November of 2015.  Here’s the link to my original …

I decided to put together a set of step-by-step directions for factoring polynomials using the box method. When I posted my interactive notebook pages for our Algebra 1 unit on Polynomials, I said that I was going to post step-by-step photographs of how to use the box method to factor polynomials.  Here’s that post. Begin …

I always have my Algebra 1 students look for patterns before we begin factoring polynomials. Free Download of Looking for Patterns in Factoring Quadratics