Last year was the first year that non-standard operations made an appearance in Oklahoma’s math standards. That was also the year that I mistakenly thought that I would just throw non-standard operations into the same skill as evaluating expressions. After all, they are pretty much the same thing, right? Though I may have thought so …
INBs
We kicked off our lesson on evaluating expressions with the parenthetical promise. Every year, I force my students to make the following promise to me: I, _, do hereby promise that I will always use parentheses whenever I substitute values into an algebraic expression. I make them sign the promise and date it. Every year, …
I gave my Algebra 1 students a “One Incorrect” activity from Greta Bergman to give them some extra practice with evaluating expressions. Students had to evaluate expressions until they found the one that didn’t equal 36. Students are always eager to get their work checked when they get an answer that isn’t 36. Usually, I …
Next, we glued in our first pocket of the year. I pre-printed the steps for evaluating expressions on the pocket. Super proud of how it turned out! Inside the pocket, we put four practice problems that we completed. See all those lovely parentheses?!? Free Download of Evaluating Expressions Practice Problems with Pocket
Quick post today to share another foldable I made for my chemistry class. Holt’s Modern Chemistry textbook places a big emphasis on differentiating between three different types of research at the beginning of the year. To help my students keep these straight, I made a types of chemical research foldable for them to glue in …
After reviewing the order of operations, we completed this negatives and exponents graphic organizer in our Algebra 1 interactive notebook. I think in the future, I would make this activity into some sort of card sort instead. I also wish I would have had a place where students formally recorded the difference between a negative …
I created this foldable to give my Algebra 1 students some practice with the order of operations. These were definitely complex problems. I wrote them to involve negatives with exponents, absolute value bars, radicals, and fractions. One of the key skills I am trying to teach my algebra students is that there are more types …
I love this “One Incorrect” Order of Operations Activity that was shared by Greta Bergman. Students are given 8 expressions. 7 of the expressions simplify to -13. 1 of them doesn’t. I challenge students to complete problems until they find the one that doesn’t equal -13. I tell them that when they find that one, …
I created this order of operations graphic organizer for our Algebra 1 interactive notebooks. My students may have been looking at order of operations problems for years, but these problems most likely didn’t contain grouping symbols such as absolute value bars, radicals, or fraction lines. My students need practice with this broader definition of grouping …
The chemistry textbook I am following this year (Holt Modern Chemistry) begins with an examination of the six main branches of chemistry. I decided to give students a foldable to glue in their notebooks so they would have the definitions of each of these branches. At first, I considered having the students write all six …
I’m pretty proud of how the states of matter foldable I designed for my chemistry class turned out! We put this foldable in our chemistry interactive notebooks. The outside of the foldable shows the states of matter in order of the amount of energy present. It also gives students a place to write the name …
Today’s lesson is brought to you with special thanks to the OKC Thunder. I chose to use data for the OKC Thunder because they are Oklahoma’s only professional sports team. Oklahoma is just a little bit obsessed with them! UPDATE: I did this activity during the 2016-2017 school year, so my data is from …
I used this estimating 30 seconds data collection activity with my Algebra 1 students, and it turned out to be a ton of fun. How well can you estimate 30 seconds? This is the question I posed to my Algebra 1 students a couple of weeks ago as part of our unit on data analysis. …
I used this classifying sequences task from Mathspad (subscription required) as a quick review of the different types of sequences with my Algebra 1 students before our quiz. In this activity, students must classify each sequence as arithmetic, geometric, or Fibonacci and find the next two numbers in the sequence. We glued the half-sheet in …
I created this classifying sequences activity to give my algebra students practice distinguishing between geometric and arithmetic sequences. I also threw in some other sequences which we classified as “neither.” On top of classifying the sequence, students also had to identify the next term in the sequence. My original plan was to make this a …
I created this types of sequences graphic organizer for my Algebra 1 students to glue in their interactive notebooks. Even though Oklahoma’s standards only mention arithmetic and geometry sequences, I decided to include a category called “Neither” as well. This gave me the opportunity to expose my students to the Fibonacci sequence! In retrospect, I …
I created this graphing geometric sequences foldable to wrap up our sequences unit in Algebra 1. After working with finding rules and terms, I decided I still needed my students to wrap their minds around how the graph of a geometric sequence differed from the graphs we had previously made for arithmetic sequences. After graphing …
I created this geometric sequences practice sheet to give my Algebra 1 students practice writing rules for geometric sequences and using that rule to find various terms in the sequence. Specifically, I required them to find the 8th and 10th term in each sequence. Note to self: put a title next year because it looks …
I created this arithmetic sequences practice sheet to give my Algebra 1 students extra practice with writing rules for arithmetic sequences and finding various terms in the sequence. Students were given various arithmetic sequences. After writing a rule for the sequence, they had to use that rule to find the 15th term, 50th term, and …
I first learned about the DINO method for finding the nth term of an arithmetic sequence from the Miss Brookes Maths blog. A google search led me to this free worksheet and poster set from Numero Maths (sadly the link is no longer working). I think I will get rid of the DiNO part of this next …
I created this foldable to teach finding the rule for an arithmetic sequence by graphing to my Algebra 1 students. As I posted before, this is my first year teaching sequences in Algebra 1. The new Oklahoma math standards (OAS) include this standard: A1.A.3.5 Recognize that arithmetic sequences are linear using equations, tables, graphs, and …
I created these measures of central tendency graphic organizers for my Algebra 1 students to review how to find mean, median, mode, and range at the beginning of our data analysis unit. If you’ve been paying attention, you might have caught a sneak peek of these notes over finding mean, median, mode, and range in …
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’ve been asked a few questions lately about how I have my students make pockets for their interactive notebooks. I thought for sure I had blogged about this already, but I couldn’t find the blog post anywhere! I have my students make pockets for their interactive notebooks whenever I’m giving them a bunch of …
I always have my Algebra 1 students look for patterns before we begin factoring polynomials. Free Download of Looking for Patterns in Factoring Quadratics