Combining Like Terms Guided Notes & Doodles | Simplify Expressions

All the expressions in this activity contain only positive numbers, so students will not need to know negative integers to combine like terms and simplify expressions.

This product contains scaffolded notes that help introduce the topic, three different activities (maze, doodle/color-by-number, regular worksheet) to help with practice, and a real-life application page to connect math to real life. Students will determine whether terms are like terms, practice adding and subtracting like terms to simplify expressions, and then read about how combining like terms can help with food catering.

It's print-and-go and artsy! If your students love color by number, color by code, or sketch notes, they'll love this lesson. This product is part of the Expressions Bundle: Read, Write, Simplify, Evaluate Expressions! (purchase the bundle for the best deal!)

What's included... (12 pages total)

✅ Guided Notes (2 pages).

✅ Practice Problems (1 page, 5 problems)

✅ Maze: Check for Understanding. (1 page, 10 problems)✅ Doodle Math: Solve problems to unlock doodle patterns to finish a Doodle Math art piece—a fresh twist on color by number or color by code. (1 page, 9 problems)

✅ Real Life Application (1 page)

✅ Answer Key (6 pages)

Great for…

⭐ Introductory Lessons

⭐ Graphic Organizers

⭐ Scaffolded Notes

⭐ Interactive Notebooks

⭐ Review Lessons

⭐ Class Discussions

⭐ Extra Practice

⭐ Homework

Standards covered...

6.EE.A.3 Apply the properties of operations to generate equivalent expressions. For example, apply the distributive property to the expression 3 (2 + ) to produce the equivalent expression 6 + 3; apply the distributive property to the expression 24 + 18 to produce the equivalent expression 6 (4 + 3); apply properties of operations to + + to produce the equivalent expression 3.

6.EE.A.4 Identify when two expressions are equivalent (i.e., when the two expressions name the same number regardless of which value is substituted into them). For example, the expressions + + and 3 are equivalent because they name the same number regardless of which number stands for.

Reviews for my other products…

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Karen S. - “Just a good fun activity during the holidays for practicing skills! Great product!”

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐️ Christine M. - “I put this out as an extra credit assignment for my 8th graders at the end of the square and cube roots unit.  The students who chose to do it seemed to enjoy the "doodle" part because it was different than a typical color by number task.  Thank you!”

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Carly S. - “My students really loved this and it worked really well in my classroom!”