Equal, or not equal...that is the question...

Today was most definitely a Monday...with two Mondays left.  The kids know it, too.  They may not know much else today, but that they know.

Whew.

It was a whirlwind kind of day.  Testing is allllllmost done. (2nd grade does PALs testing... no state testing, but it takes forever.)  My morning was spent trying to complete all of that from last week... and of course I had some who I needed to test that didn't come today.

Great :/

But after an eventful morning, we settled down to start our new math skill today.  We are doing our minute drills to earn our grade level ice cream party which will help us to learn about inequalities.  I love teaching this kind of stuff!

We started out by talking about what it meant to be equal.  the same, the same number, the same AMOUNT (whoo!).  We talked about what the equal sign looked like (two equal lines, the same length) and then we talked about one of these...

 Then we talked about what not equal meant...

And we came up with this anchor chart...

Tomorrow we will practice using the manipulatives and add them to the balance scale to prove that the equation is equal or not equal.  Here's a freebie for you!  Here is the activity that we'll be doing... please let me know what you think!  Click on the picture below to get your copy!   

If you like this, check out my other unit on using equal and not equal here!  This is the first page that we did together today...  I'm putting it on sale through midnight!