Hands on approach to understanding inequalities in the 7th grade

My co-worker, Liz Mattarazo, shared this great lesson on inequalities.  Most of my students have no trouble understanding why you need to change the inequality signs when multiplying by a negative number now.

Have students create their own number line from -15 to +15 using the long side of wide copy paper.  They will also make “A” and “B” markers from small pieces of colored paper.

Give the students two tables with three columns filled in with starting numbers under the “A” and “B” headers and 12 rows of blank cells under that.   Write in arrows with the operation that you want students to perform that take you from one row to the next.  Have the students use the markers to reflect the changes in the table and enter in the inequality sign on each row in between.   So if you start with “A” equal to 2 and “B” equal to 5, have the students first add 1 to each value, subtract 2, then multiply each value by 2.  You can then have them multiply each number by -2,

This doesn’t show up on visual basic too well so I will add more when I can take a photo of the page.  The steps are hand written but the students did not have any type of confusion when completing this.

 

A

B

2

>

5

+1

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