Thanks to Nrich for this activity (via https://nrich.maths.org/6942)
Attached to this post is the game cards, rules and solutions for the activity which I plan to use with my 10 Int. class helping them to work well together and to consolidate knowledge of collecting like terms and expanding of brackets. Seems to be a generally good algebra activity to get their brains into gear? We’ll see how we go…
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Here is a desmos task on like terms – ‘Collecting like terms‘ – is what it says…begins with character/disney type matchup for practice, then a cardsort on collecting like terms (note the teacher dashboard when you look at results shows you if it’s right or not).
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This resource links to a video of Jon Orr’s on teaching like terms – I think he had a page somewhere with more context, that also listed to the fast food takeaway clip I’ve used before!
A different intro activity to develop the need though came from a Dan Meyer email, where he used the activity captured in the image below for a ‘long cut’ first, before getting to the solution (which he followed up with this Desmos task) 