Writing and Graphing Inequalities

I had a good week last week, compared to last week. Things were clicking, the students were understanding and I was able to pull small groups on solving equations. 

We started with these cards. I wanted the students to connect the inequality signs with real world situations, so I made this inequality matching set. 

Day 1:

First Sort: I first gave students the cards without the signs. I asked them to come up with a way to sort the cards. They needed to have at least 2 groups and could have as many as they wanted. Some of the ways they sorted them.

• Numbers more than 50 and less than 50 (or some other number). --These groups didn't pay attention to the situations.
• Situations with more than one answer and only one answer. --I didn't expect this one and I was excited to hear it. 
• Situations the were positive or negative--really those that were less than or greater than. 
• Situations which were less than or greater than

I heard so many great conversations among my students as they sorted. 

After their initial sort, we talked about the word inequality and what it means. One girl said that an inequality has more than one answer--a wonderful response. 

Second Sort: After introducing them to each of the signs and learning the new less than/greater than or equal to --I asked them to resort the cards in 5 groups now. This was a little more difficult for them to distinguish when it was equal to and when it wasn't. But as I walked around I got to talk to the students about how to tell the difference by questioning them. 

Day 2:

I used this foldable to sort phrases into which sign they go with. I gave the students the cards back and asked them to look through them to find a phrase like "no more than" and identify which sign it goes with. 

Day 3:

We started writing the inequalities. We did some class practice and I called students to the board and the we added this page to their notebook and they practiced with their groups. 

Day 4: 

We started graphing inequalities. I had some examples on the board that students came up and practiced and then they finished the above page from their notebook.

I ended the week hearing students say this was so easy. Their exit tickets showed that they are understanding this. I know that when we start solving inequalities, it might be a different story though. 

The Inequality Sort Cards are available in my store now.