Looking for engaging factoring activities for your Algebra 1 or Algebra 2 classes? I’ve got you covered with 15 creative and hands-on activities for teaching factoring quadratics that I have used over the years with my math students.
Polynomials Activities
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. On …
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!