standard_description: Understand solving an equation or inequality as a process of answering a question: which values from a specified set, if any, make the equation or inequality true? Use substitution to determine whether a given number in a specified set makes an equation or inequality true.
problem_activity: Optional activity
This activity is optional due to time considerations. The purpose of this activity is for students to reason about whether given values make an inequality true and justify their answers using inequality statements and graphs (MP3). Students explored this concept in the previous activity, so they should work to articulate how they check if a number is a solution to an inequality statement and an inequality on a number line.
Students will play a game to practice this skill. The game’s goal is for one student to guess a mystery number using as few inequalities as possible. To create a class competition, keep track of how many inequalities each group uses for each number and display scores after each round. The winning group is the group with the lowest score.
Launch
Arrange students in groups of 4. As students read the game instructions with their group, give each group 1 set of inequalities and 1 set of numbers, pre-cut from the blackline master. Review the game instructions as a whole class. Students will play 1 round and then pause to reflect and plan strategies for the next rounds. Allow students 10 minutes of game time followed by a whole-class discussion.
Once student groups have completed one round of game play, pause the game and ask groups to reflect on their strategies. Groups should make a plan before continuing to the second round of the game. Post or ask these questions to guide a short discussion:
“Clue givers, how did you decide which inequalities would be the most helpful for your detective?”
“Clue givers, did you work together to decide which 3 clues to give or did you decide independently?”
“Detective, were some inequalities more helpful than others as you tried to guess the mystery number? If so, what made an inequality more helpful?”
Action and Expression: Internalize Executive Functions.
Begin with a small-group or whole-class demonstration of how to play the game. Check for understanding by inviting students to rephrase directions in their own words.
Supports accessibility for: Memory; Conceptual processing
Student Facing
Your teacher will give your group two sets of cards—one set shows inequalities and the other shows numbers. Place the inequality cards face up where everyone can see them. Shuffle the number cards and stack them face down.
To play:
One person in your group is the detective. The other people will give clues.
Pick one number card from the stack and show it to everyone except the detective.
The people giving clues each choose an inequality that will help the detective identify the unknown number.
The detective studies the inequalities and makes three guesses.
If the detective does not guess the right number, each person chooses another inequality to help.
When the detective does guess the right number, a new person becomes the detective.
Repeat the game until everyone has had a turn being the detective.
Student Response
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Anticipated Misconceptions
Some groups may misunderstand the directions, thinking that each person giving clues is supposed to take a different number card from the stack. Explain to them that there is only one unknown number per round and everyone gives clues about this same number. When a new person becomes the detective, that is when a new number card is drawn.
Activity Synthesis
Once all students have had a turn as the detective, start a whole-class discussion. Ask groups to share their most successful strategies for choosing helpful clue inequalities as well as strategies for using those clues to guess the mystery number. Emphasize how students can check that a value is or is not a solution to an inequality: both symbolic statements (substitute the value and check that the resulting statement is true) and on the number line (plot the value to test and make sure that it falls within a shaded region).
Speaking: MLR8 Discussion Supports.
To support all students to participate in the discussion, provide students with sentence frames, such as “One strategy I used to choose a clue was _____” or “One way that I checked that a value was a solution to the inequality (number line representation) was to _____.” Ask them to complete one of the sentences in writing or share a completed response verbally with a partner.
Design Principle(s): Maximize meta-awareness


aligns: yes