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Lesson Plan
PEMDAS: Order Up!
Teach students that order matters with this lesson about PEMDAS. Students will practice both in a group and individually to ensure their understanding.
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Learning Objectives
Students will be able to solve expressions using the order of operations.
The adjustment to the whole group lesson is a modification to differentiate for children who are English learners.
Introduction
(5 minutes)- Prior to conducting this lesson, gauge students' understanding of the order of operations.
- Write a pair of equations on the board similar to: 5 × 3 + 6 and 5 + 3 × 6.
- Discuss the rules that must be followed for this problem to be solved correctly.
- Have students insert parentheses around the multiplication or division part in the expressions, and define it as symbols used in mathematics to group things.
- Discuss the similarities and differences in the problems and the change in results this would cause.
- Explain that at the conclusion of this lesson, they will be able to solve problems that require them to know the order in which operations should take place.
Beginning
- Allow students to use their home language (L1) or new language (L2) in their discussions.
- Provide a definition for "order of operations" and "parentheses" and a visual to help them follow the conversation. Refer to the visuals during your explanations.
Intermediate
- Write the academic language they can use throughout the lesson on the board as you introduce the language.
- Model using comparative phrases and then write some of them on the board to help in their discussions (e.g., "They are the same/different because...").