Evaluating, Expanding, and Simplifying

Grade 9s worked on understanding the difference between evaluating, expanding and simplifying expressions with exponents today.  

We worked with positive and negative bases, and had order of operations questions in the mix.

While we looked at order of operations, we found that a few key ideas needed some reinforcing.  We looked at how we can represent our work with integers on a number line, and with coloured tiles.

We also looked at rules for multiplying with positives and negatives.

We tested some theories…

Learned what calculator buttons to use…

Figured out exponent laws for simplifying…

And finally transferred our skills to questions that had variables as the base.

We are working on approaching new challenges with confidence, checking our answers to see if they are reasonable, and working with peers to fix mistakes that we find.

We’ll have a quiz tomorrow to check our understanding!