Four 4s--Week of Inspirational Math

I did this activity with my students at the beginning of the year two years ago. It was part of the Youcubed week of inspirational math. This is a week of activities that promote growth mindset in math and thinking of math beyond word problems but as relationships between numbers.

I had a great time doing the week of inspirational math with my students. There are now even more lessons then when I first started this.

This activity was called Four 4s. Students had to create expressions using only four 4s that equaled numbers 1-20. They could use any expression and any math they wanted. They loved it and I think it would be a great before a holiday activity. Students wanted to learn new math to keep creating expressions. I taught them square roots and exponents and they just gobbled that stuff up.

There is nothing that says this has to be done with only fours. If your students find expressions for all these numbers, move onto a another number!