Tuesday, December 8, 2009

"Unwrapping" 1-step & 2-step equations

Last year when teaching this I saw that the students were having a hard time solving 1 and 2 step equations so when this was introduced to me I immediately fell in love with it. It has worked marvelously. Attached are two worksheets I made to help the students with solving 1 and 2 step equations. The first is two step equations. (Of course we started with 1-step but I accidently attached 2-step first oops). For example 2x - 4 = 12. The variable always starts in the first triangle (x) (then follow the arrows) then the first bubble you put what happened immediately to x (multiplied by 2) and second bubble you (subtracted 4) and the answer always goes in the star (12) after the star you follow the arrows around. The opposite of subtracting 4 is (adding 4) and the opposite of multiplying by 2 is (dividing by 2). If you have the students start at the star and do the operations they will get their answer in the second triangle. So have them take 12 add 4 and then divide by 2 to get the answer. They should be able to "substitute" the answer they got in the second triangle and for the variable in this case x and perform the operations to get the answer in the star.

It works the exact same way for 1-step equations.

Hope this helps you like it did me.





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4 comments:

  1. C.C. JohnsonDecember 9, 2009 at 3:55 AM

    I also use this method this year. It was very successful with my students who had no clue about how to solve equations. I also taught them how to balance equations. Most of them are still using this method and do not want to change. We also tried this method with inequalities. It works until you get to multiplying or dividing by negative numbers. We are still working on that piece.

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  2. Don LloydDecember 9, 2009 at 5:09 PM

    I have used something similar, with out the stars, cirlces and triangles. The students really seem to take to this method rather quickly, much faster than they grasp using inverse operations to solve equations. I have tried teaching them both methods side by side with the wrap and unwrap method, and most of the kids will chose to use the wrap unwrap method in their classwork.

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  3. M.HocterDecember 10, 2009 at 3:40 AM

    I had not seen this method before. I used it yesterday with one of my advanced 7th grade students and she grasped the unwrapping concept rather quickly. I was even able to use the inverse operation vocabulary and she seemed to understand the process. I will definitely use these this year. Thanks!

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