Cooking Up a Delicious Resource on Equality

I put together this set of activities to go along with my teaching of equality.  Way too often I have seen things like this:

6 + 5 = 11 + 3.

Look familiar?  Yes, 6 + 5 does equal 11, but that does not balance this equation properly.  Throw in the less than and greater than symbols and you get a double yikes!  

Using a bowl of "spaghetti and meatballs," students create equations, and fill in a missing number that finishes incomplete equations (like you see above).  If you pick a meatball labeled "al dente," you get to pick whatever you wish to make the equation true.  My young mathematicians had a blast with these activities.

Serve up a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs by visiting my TpT store by clicking here.