Description
What our Absolute Value Comparisons lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Absolute Value Comparisons teaches students how to compare absolute values. Students will work with real world examples and will create posters related to submarines and helicopters, using their newfound knowledge to inform their decisions. By the end of the lesson, students will be experts at comparisons of absolute value. This lesson is for students in 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. The supplies you will need for this lesson include markers or colored pencils, paper, and rulers.
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 the lesson is to have students draw and write their own examples that mirror those in the activity section. If you have more advanced students, you can begin to expand on the absolute value bars as a grouping symbol and apply them to order of operations problems.
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.
ABSOLUTE VALUE COMPARISONS LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
Absolute Value Comparisons
The Absolute Value Comparisons lesson plan includes two content pages. When you think about absolute value, you should ask yourself how far the value is from zero. Absolute value measures the distance along a number line. The positive and negative tell you the direction you’re moving, not the value of the digit. The symbol for absolute value is two straight parallel bars on either side of the number.
To find the solution to an absolute value problem using a number line, you simply look at the distance. For the problem |4|, the number 4 is 4 units away from zero on a number line, so the answer is 4. For |-7|, the answer is 7 because it’s 7 units from zero on a number line.
If you compare those distances, 7 is greater than 4. Therefore, |4| < |-7|, because 4 < 7. The lesson includes a few more example problems like this.
We use absolute value bars as grouping symbols as well. This means that, when evaluating them for an answer, you must calculate everything inside the bars first. One example of that is this example problem: – |-14| = |-14|. The absolute value of -14 is 14. The negative on the outside is a -1. Therefore, you solve it this way: -1*|-14|=-1*14=-14.
We also use absolute value to find distance in the real world. When you invest in a stock, you might track the movement of the value of that stock, which rises and falls in value. If you invest in a stock that’s below market price by $6 that later rises above market price by $4, the stock has increased by a total distance of $10: |-6| + |4| = 10.
ABSOLUTE VALUE COMPARISONS LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Absolute Value Comparisons 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.
SUBMARINES AND HELICOPTERS ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
For the activity worksheet, students will read the information on the worksheet about submarines and helicopters and will use this information to place the submarines and helicopters on a poster showing their relation to one another.
LESSON MATERIAL PRACTICE WORKSHEET
The practice worksheet asks students to answer several questions related to the lesson material, including questions about vocabulary, problems where they need to solve for the absolute value, and a word problem.
ABSOLUTE VALUE COMPARISONS HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
Like the practice worksheet, the homework assignment asks students to answer various questions related to the lesson material, including questions about vocabulary, problems where they need to solve for the absolute value, and a word problem.
Worksheet Answer Keys
This lesson plan includes answer keys for the activity worksheet, 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.
