Description

What our Inequalities lesson plan includes

Lesson Objectives and Overview: Inequalities begins by defining an inequality and reminds students that they solve inequalities just like equations. The lesson also discusses the two ways inequalities are different from equations. At the end of the lesson, students will be able to solve inequalities. 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 addition to this lesson is to have your students create a dance to help them remember the symbols and circles. You could also have your students write word problems to model inequalities. Finally, you could have your students roll dice to find a number and pull a symbol from a bag to write and solve an inequality.

Teacher Notes

The teacher notes page includes lines that you can use to add your own notes as you’re preparing for this lesson.

INEQUALITIES LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES

Inequalities

The Inequalities lesson plan includes two pages of content. Inequalities are solved just like equations, but they differ from equations in two main ways. First, inequalities use different symbols. Second, when you solve an inequality, you find all of its solution. Solutions for inequalities are numbers that you can substitute for the variable to make the inequality a true statement. The symbols that inequalities use are > (greater than), ≥ (greater than or equal to), < (less than), and ≤ (less than or equal to).

Let’s take a look at an example and ask ourselves if different numbers are solutions to the inequality x ≤ 8. Is -1 a solution? Yes, because -1 ≤ 8. What about 0? Yes, because 0 ≤ 8. What about 8? Yes, because 8 ≤ 8. What about 8.3? No, because 8.3 is not less than or equal to 8.

When plotting an inequality on a number line to show its solutions, we also use some special symbols. An open circle (“o”) means that the value is not included, while a closed circle (“●”) means that the value is included. We use an open circle with the symbols < and >, and a closed circle with the symbols ≤ and ≥.

The lesson shows a few example number lines, starting with the x ≤ 8 example. For this number line, the circle is closed, because 8 is included. The circle is on the number 8, and the line points to the left. The lesson closes with two more helpful examples for students.

INEQUALITIES LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS

The Inequalities lesson plan includes four worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, a homework assignment, and a quiz. You can refer to the guide on the classroom procedure page to determine when to hand out each worksheet.

MATCHING ACTIVITY WORKSHEET

For the activity worksheet, students will cut out each box on the worksheet, each of which contains a symbol, equation, phrase, or number line. They will then gather the matching boxes and glue them onto another piece of paper.

GRAPHING PRACTICE WORKSHEET

The practice worksheet asks students to circle the correct response to each question about inequalities. The will also graph inequalities and provide three possible solutions for each.

INEQUALITIES HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT

For the homework assignment, students will write and graph the inequality represented in each word problem.

QUIZ

This lesson also includes a quiz that you can use to test students’ understanding of the lesson material. For the quiz, students will look at inequalities and decide whether different numbers are solutions to the inequality. They will also graph inequalities and provide three solutions for each.

Worksheet Answer Keys

This lesson plan includes answer keys for the activity worksheet, the practice worksheet, the homework assignment, and a quiz. 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.