Algebraic Thinking

Once students understand the order of operations, they often just get stuck doing increasingly difficult practice problems. That’s a sure-fire way to squelch learning, though. Here, students determine where to place parentheses to make the greatest change in an expression.

Multiplication and division, natural foes, are constantly seeking to undo each other. Students will attempt to reverse the effects of multiplication by dividing once, twice, or even thrice!

Let’s use factors to encode and decode words.

Why are there 12 months? Why don’t weeks fit into months evenly? Why don’t weeks fit into the year evenly? What’s going on with the calendar!

Say you have a dollar. Say you can double that dollar each day: $1, $2, $4, and so on. How long will it take to reach… one million dollars? Not as long as you might think!

Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.

Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.

Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.

Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.

These flowers sure are getting bigger faster! How large will they be in step 10? What about step 50?

Scrambled up somewhere in 161,000 is a first name. Can you find it!?

Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.

A triangle splits and splits and splits again. How many will there be in step 20?

Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.

Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.

Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.

Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.

Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.

Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.

Use super cute fruit to introduce algebraic thinking to your young students.