Introduction to Algebra

I had the pleasure of being in a grade 9 class as they started their algebra lessons. There was a “which one doesn’t belong” which helped to introduce the need for some vocabulary to discuss algebra. Terms, and coefficients, and constants, and like terms, and exponents were all discussed, and students had some neat ideas about what a variable is: something that holds value, but can change. One student suggested that -3 is the only number of the 4 that we actually know.

Following this, algebra tiles were introduced, and students built pictures.

After the pictures were built, they wrote expressions for their pictures, then simplified the polynomials into their simplest form. New vocabulary was introduced to talk about monomials, binomials and trinomials.

A concept that is sometimes intimidating for students can be much more approachable when starting in this gentle way.