We have been busy this week combining like terms and now trying to write our own expressions. I realize now that I have done this is a very wonky order (I'll try to remember this next year). Many students became confused about writing down "10 added to a number" as m + 10, having the argument that it couldn't be done because they are not like terms. Golly that made my heart happy. I knew they had been listening to me.
Because I taught these out of order I had to convince them that this had nothing to do with combining like terms. I explained that we would turn around and substitute a value for the variable (which we have already studied)
Today in class students are taking a Moby Assessment on 6.EE.2 and then completing a crossword puzzle I created relating to translating word phrased into algebraic expressions.
Next week, we will be reviewing how to read, write, and evaluate an expression, how to simplify an expression and substitute for the variable, so we can move on to equations to finish off 2015.