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Teaching CCSS.Math.Content.HSA-SSE.A.1

Seeing life through expression-tinted glasses.

Activities: 4
Quiz Questions: 0

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Description
Sample

We can all agree that freedom of expression is kind of a big deal. Whether it's standing up for your beliefs or writing a brutally honest review on Yelp, it's important that your students can express themselves well—but just as importantly, they should be able to interpret expressions well, too.

Not surprisingly, the same applies to math.

With Shmoop's A-SSE.1 Teaching Guide, you'll get plenty of resources to hone your student's expression writing and interpreting skills. With plenty of activities and worksheets, showing students how expressions are built and teaching 'em the lingo will be a breeze.

What's Inside Shmoop's Math Teaching Guides

Shmoop is a labor of love from folks who love to teach. Our teaching guides will help you supplement in-classroom learning with fun, engaging, and relatable learning materials that bring math to life.

Inside each guide, you'll find handouts, activity ideas, and more—all written by experts and designed to save you time. Here are the deets on what you get with your teaching guide:

3-5 in-class activities specifically designed with the Common Core in mind.
4 handouts (with separate answer keys!) that'll get your students thinking deeply about the concepts and calculations.
Additional resources that'll help make any math topic hip, hot, and happening.
A note from Shmoop's teachers to you, telling you what to expect from teaching the standard and how you can overcome the hurdles.

Want more help teaching Teaching CCSS.Math.Content.HSA-SSE.A.1?

Check out all the different parts of our corresponding learning guide.

Instructions for You

Objective:
This activity pits students against each other in humanity's oldest game: bingo. They'll be matching up one- and two-variable expressions with a list of word problems you read aloud to them, all involving the survival of two people during the zombie apocalypse.

We'll be focusing on interpreting an entire expression in terms of its real-world (or at least zombie-world) context, so this will be great practice for future work with equations and variables. The idea is to help your students think of an expression as both a single quantity and a combination of one or more individual terms.

It'll also show them how to ration their food supplies when they're the last people left alive on the planet, and who wouldn't want to know that?

Activity Length: 1 class period
Activity Type: Individual
Materials Needed: Copies of the blank Zombie Bingo card (one per student), chips/markers to cover bingo spaces (like poker chips, erasers, pieces of candy, or even just scraps of paper—we ain't picky), some awesome prizes, pens/pencils
Attachments: Zombie Bingo Card, Zombie Bingo Expression Sheet

Step 1: Pass out blank bingo cards to everyone, along with plenty of chips/markers. Bonus points if you can find tiny zombie figurines to use as chips.

Step 2: Have your students write each of the following 24 expressions inside one box on their bingo card—no repeats! They can put 'em in whichever space they want, as long as they use each expression once and only once. (The top left corner and the middle free space are already filled in.)

Bingo expressions:
x + y (already filled in)x
y
2x
2y
3x + 3y2x + 2y3y
3x
x + 2y

(x + y)²
21x
14x + 14y

7x + 7y
3x – 3y
6x

1095x + 1095y
3(14x + 14y)
3000 – (14x + 14y)
20 – y
3x + 3y + 30

Step 3: Run 'em through the rules real quick: you'll be reading a sentence to them that they need to match up with one of the expressions on their bingo card. The first person to get a full row of 5 expressions filled up (vertically, horizontally, or diagonally) wins!

Now read them the following situation, out loud:

Daryl and Carol are survivors of the zombie apocalypse, so they're trying to ration their food. Daryl always limits himself to x ounces of food in a single meal (no matter which meal it is), while Carol eats y ounces at every meal.
Have your students take careful notes on this, and repeat it once or twice. This'll be the context for the phrases/quantities they match up. (Don't write it on the board or anything—we want this to be strictly verbal.)

Step 4: Once everyone has their bingo card filled out and understands the rules, get the game started! Have everyone put a chip on the free space in the middle of their card.

Now you'll take the Zombie Bingo Expression Sheet and slowly read off each situations in whatever order you like, one at a time, till someone gets a bingo. Keep the answers secret until you check off the winner's scorecard, and mix 'em up—don't read them in numerical order.

Step 5: When someone announces they've got a bingo, have them bring their bingo card up to the front of the room where you'll double check that they've got the right expressions covered. If everything looks good, give them a prize and have everyone clear off their cards for another round. Repeat step 4 for as many rounds as you've got time for (and obviously change up the order in which you read the quantities).

Feel free to play around with all the usual bingo variations: corners, edges, blackout the whole board, speed rounds, etc. You can even have students swap cards after a few rounds, just to keep them on their toes.

Instructions for Your Students

School is all about teaching you useful real-life skills, and we're about to bust out the mother lode over here. This activity combines two all-important life abilities: playing bingo and surviving a zombie apocalypse.

You'll be competing against your classmates by matching up algebraic expressions with the situations/quantities they represents, all on an old-school bingo card. Get five expressions in a row and you'll thunderously yell "Bingo!" to claim your reward. Shouting in class and prizes? What's not to love here?
Now if the zombies ever come to your grandparents' Elk Lodge during their weekly bingo-palooza, you'll be fully prepped to save the day.

Step 1: Grab a blank bingo card from your teacher, plus a big handful of chips/markers. Put on your grimmest zombie-fighting face.

Step 2: Fill in the blank spaces on your bingo card with the following list of 24 expressions, writing down one expression per box. Don't do them in order! Mix 'em up nice and put each expression wherever you like. You can use each expression once, and no repeats allowed. (The first expression and the middle free space are already filled in.) Check off each expression as you add it so you don't accidentally repeat anything.

Step 3: Listen carefully while your teacher explains the rules (it's bingo, so it isn't exactly rocket science). Then your teacher will read you a story problem involving the zombie apocalypse. Take notes on this, and make sure you know what each variable represents. Trust us, it'll come in handy.

Step 4: Let's bingo it up! Your teacher's gonna read a phrase that represents some quantity, and it's up to you to figure out which expression it matches up with on your bingo card. Put one bingo chip on the matching space. (They'll give you some time to puzzle through it first, and don't forget to put a chip on your middle free space—that one's a freebie.) You'll go through this a bunch of times.

Step 5: Once you've got a solid row covered on your bingo card (that's 5 spaces in a row horizontally, vertically, or diagonally), go ahead and shout out "Bingo!" in your most dramatic voice. If you get a bingo before anyone else, head up to the front of the room and show your teacher your bingo card. Now revel in your hard-earned winnings!

Rinse and repeat step 4 till you're all bingo-ed out.

Activities: 4
Quiz Questions: 0