Description
What our Equations (2-Step) lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Equations (2-Step) engages students in solving basic 2-step equations. Students are asked to do interactive activities in order to strengthen their practical understanding of how to do these equations. At the end of the lesson, students will be able to identify and solve basic 2-step equations. This lesson is for students in 5th grade and 6th grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the blue box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand.
Options for Lesson
Included with this lesson is an “Options for Lesson” section that lists a number of suggestions for activities to add to the lesson or substitutions for the ones already in the lesson. One optional adjustment to the lesson is to either use examples only with positive integers or review both positive and negative integers if necessary. For the Single-Page Instructions activity, you can have your students vote on their favorite and turn it into a larger poster-sized display. Finally, when fractions are involved, you may choose to let students multiply both sides by the inverted fraction.
Teacher Notes
The teacher notes page includes a paragraph with additional guidelines and things to think about as you begin to plan your lesson. This page also includes lines that you can use to add your own notes as you’re preparing for this lesson.
EQUATIONS (2-STEP) LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
Equations (2-Step)
The (2-Step) lesson plan includes one content page. Students first learn how to solve simple one-step equations, like a + 5 = 9. In this example, a = 4. To solve this problem algebraically you subtract 5 from both sides of the equation. Doing this keeps the equation balanced. It’s important to remember the rule that says that whatever you do to one side of an equation, you do to the other side as well.
If you subtract from one side of an equation, you need to subtract from the other side as well. This rule also applies to 2-step equations.
For example, we can look at the problem 2x – 4 = 12. This is a 2-step equation because it has both subtraction and multiplication. To solve, we first add 4 to both sides of the equation, which gives us 2x = 16. Next, we divide both sides of the equation by 2. This gives us the solution x = 8.
When solving 2-step equations, you do the inverse operation of what’s happening in the equation. The first operation is always addition or subtraction, and the second is multiplication or division. The example problem included subtraction and multiplication, so we needed to add and divide to solve.
We can look at another example problem: 1/3a + 6 = 10. It’s a 2-step equation because there’s both addition and division. Our first step is to subtract 6 from both sides of the equation, which gives us 1/3a = 4. Next, we multiply both sides of the equation by 3, for a final result of a = 12.
It’s important to note that fractions are basically division problems. This is why we need to solve using multiplication. You also might encounter both positive and negative numbers while solving 2-step equations, just like one-step equations.
EQUATIONS (2-STEP) LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Equations (2-Step) lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. You can refer to the guide on the classroom procedure page to determine when to hand out each worksheet.
CREATING PROBLEMS ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
The activity worksheet asks students to create 20 2-step equations for another student to solve. They will also create an answer key that they can use to correct the other students’ work.
SOLVING EQUATIONS PRACTICE WORKSHEET
For the practice worksheet, students will solve 16 2-step equations, showing their work.
EQUATIONS (2-STEP) HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
The homework assignment asks students to look at equations and write in words how to solve each of them. They will also solve each equation using the steps they’ve written out.
Worksheet Answer Keys
This lesson plan includes answer keys for the practice worksheet and the homework assignment. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
