Illustrative Mathematics · Grade 6 · Unit 6 · Expressions and Equations
Welcome to the lab! Match equations to tape diagrams, balance hangers, turn stories into equations, test whether expressions are twins, split rectangles, power up with exponents, and read the data. Each station matches lessons from class. New to this? Learn it first →
Each station deals 8 fresh problems (Grand Balance deals 10). A right answer on the first try earns 10 points. After a wrong answer, the game names the likely mistake and gives one more try for 5 points. Fraction answers can be typed as 7/3, 2 1/3, or a close decimal.
The numbers are picked so the arithmetic is mental math: basic facts, friendly decimals and fractions, and powers no bigger than 1,000 (10,000 for powers of 10). The challenge is the idea: what the equal sign means, doing the same thing to each side, and what equivalent means. Every answer is positive, since negative numbers come in Unit 7.
Hints use the tools from class: tape diagrams, a hanger with one side solved, area diagrams for the distributive property, and the rule each table follows. A used hint caps that problem at 5 points.
Reading = as “the answer comes next,” undoing with the wrong operation, dividing the wrong way (3x = 7 as 3/7), reading 3x as the digits 3 and the number for x, writing “7 less than t” as 7 − t, letters used as labels (p for packs), calling expressions equivalent because they match at one value, multiplying only the first part in 3(x + 4), 23 as 6, adding or multiplying before the exponent, swapping the two numbers of a point, and a table rule that fits only the first row.
The unit’s partner activities (info gaps and card sorts) and the open-ended parts of Lesson 19 work better in class than as scored problems.