Anchor Charts

Today I stayed after school to create some anchor charts my regular 7th grade math classes. We are currently working on 7.EE.A.1 "Apply properties of operations as strategies to add, subtract, factor, and expand linear expressions with rational coefficients."  All my math students did ACT Interim testing today so I spent some time designing my anchor charts. I'm a bit compulsive when designing anchor charts and prefer to map out what I want to include on post-it notes and then transfer the information to chart paper.  I don't decide on colors until I sit down to write my anchor charts.  These three (well really four because I redid the Solving Expressions chart) took me over two hours to complete.

Below was the first chart I created.  I was definitely not happy with how the examples looked.  I should have had space between each line on example 2.

Solving Expressions Take One

I ended up redoing this chart after I created the charts for Distributing and Factoring.  I thought they were so much easier to read and see each example that I went back and and fixed this one up and was much happier with how it turned out the second time.

Solving Expressions Much Better!

I do not require my students to show the work of how they distribute, but put it on the anchor chart  as a guide to remind them they have to distribute to all terms in parentheses.  A common misconception is for them to only distribute to the first term.

Distributing

I love the way this chart turned out and like the combo of blue, red, and purple with the black.  Stepping outside my comfort zone of my pink, blue, green color scheme.  When students struggle I always refer back to the anchor charts to guide them to solve the problem.

Factoring

All ready to go on my front board for tomorrow.

I'm very happy with the finished products and hope they will be beneficial to my students as they work through this chapter.  In the past students have really appreciated having anchor charts to look at and often take photos of them on their phones so they can look at them at home.  I still need to make a chart for Combining Like Terms, but my family was waiting for me to get home so we could have dinner so that will have to wait until tomorrow.