Before class I handed out small whiteboards and markers and organized bags of algebra tiles (which I won't get to until tomorrow as it turns out).
We started with this warm up which students did on their small whiteboard:
I circulated and then wrote - 10, -5, -2, -6, -4, -7, IDK on the board. Those were some of the answers I had seen. Clearly we had work to do. The reason I wrote all of those answers was for them to see that many students didn't know how to do this correctly - that if they didn't get it right, it was okay. We would work on it together. We then talked about adding and subtracting integers (I have an old blog post about this here).
Then I let them try the warm up question again with much better results.
Next up, today's visual pattern (#129 but I removed the colour as I found it too leading). We used cards to create random groups of three and their task was to figure out the rule for the pattern in as many ways as possible.
I confess that I didn't circulate, listen and engage with my students enough while they were doing this as I was also handing out textbooks. However, I was really pleased with the work they did, the fact that no one went to a table and that they are starting to be able to show their thinking. Here are some samples (some got a little help connecting the representations from me):
I had two possible ways of seeing this pattern ready to go, but added a third to capture some of their thinking - many groups made a constant in the middle of the vertical part. Here are those:
I love that there are so many different ways of seeing these patterns and am always impressed when my students show me a new way of seeing it.
Next, we talked about algebraic models: using algebra tiles to represent expressions.
We wrapped up by returning feedback forms (not sure I talked about those - read about them here).
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