Grade 6 Math: Algebraic Expressions, Part 3

Expressions

In prior lessons, students learned about expressions that contained one or more of the following operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. They also contained embedded expressions enclosed in parentheses.

In this lesson, they are introduced to more complex expressions that contain the operations listed above, as well as exponential numbers.

New terminology for these more complex expressions is introduced. This terminology includes the words “term”, “coefficient,” “monomial,” a “constant,” “binomials,” and “trinomials.” A term is defined as the product of a coefficient and one or more variables raised to a non-negative integer power.

A monomial is an expression that consists of a single term. Examples of monomials are given, along with expressions that are sometimes thought to be monomials but are not. A binomial is an expression with two terms. A trinomial is an expression with three terms.

In the problems in this lesson, students are given expressions and must identify the types of expressions and their parts, using the terminology introduced in this lesson.


Combining Like Terms

In this lesson, students learn to combine like terms in expressions. Like terms are defined as terms that meet two requirements: 1) they must have the same variables, and 2) the variables must be raised to the same power.

The ability to combine like terms is based on the application of the distributive property. Students learn to rewrite like terms as a single term using the distributive property.

In the problems in this lesson, students are given expressions that contain two or more like terms. The student must rewrite the expression after combining like terms.


Simplify Linear Expressions

In this lesson, students learn to simplify expressions using the distributive property.

In the first step, they use the distributive property to distribute a coefficient across two terms of an embedded expression. In the second step, they use the distributive property to combine like terms.

Students are given an expression with multiple terms and are required to simplify it using these two steps.



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