Alphabet Toothpicks
Objective
Big Idea
Bellringer Lesson Warm-up
Today is Monday, so the Powerpoint allows students five minutes to open agenda books and record all "Big Rocks" for the week. I move about the room with my own agenda book checking student work and recording my own big rocks for the week - model by doing.
Beginning the New Activity
Wrapping Up the Lesson
I usually wrap up this lesson by having students present their work and answers to the given questions. As students are working, I am moving about the room questioning students and asking them how they arrived at their answers. If I have more than one method that answers the questions and each is a correct method, then I ask both groups to present during the wrap-up session and we discuss the merits of both.
Areas to discuss in detail include the structure and importance of the zero figure (initial amount or initial pattern). Further discussion about the structure of the linear function rule including why initial amount is added but rate of change is multiplied are very important. Rate of change is to model the repeated addition of new toothpicks.
I would suggest assigning a homework page that will allow students to practice (about 10-12 problems) writing linear function rules. The homework page could include reading tables to write a linear function (MP2) and word descriptions such as pizza - delivery fee plus rate of change so write a function rule to model the total cost (there will be a video for this real world scenario later).
