Lesson 15

The purpose of this lesson is for students to connect expressions to drawings.

In previous lessons, students created drawings to represent story problems and connected drawings and expressions to story problems. In this lesson, students match expressions to drawings and create drawings and expressions. This lesson is moving students toward a more abstract understanding of expressions (MP2). In previous lessons, students had the context of a story problem and a clear action to help them relate to the expressions. In this lesson, students use their understanding of the plus and minus signs to determine whether to add or subtract.

• Each group of 2 needs 10 two-color counters.
• Each group of 2 needs access to a yellow crayon and a red crayon.
• Gather materials from: 
  • Number Race, Stage 1
  • Math Stories, Stages 1 and 2

Revisit the norms you established as a class about doing mathematics. Which norms are working and which might need revision? Are there any norms you or your students might want to add?