Grade Levels: 6-8, 9-12

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Inequalities Lesson Plan

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Inequalities, and supports the standard of writing an inequality to represent a constraint or condition in a real-world or mathematical problem. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Display an inequality, like this one:

8 > x > 2

Ask students:

  • How might you read this expression?
  • What number could x be?

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

  • Read the description on the Inequalities topic page.
  • Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding. 
  • Have students read the Related Reading article “Plus/Minus.” Prompt students to discuss what they learned with one other.

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Students take the Inequalities Quiz, applying essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about inequalities while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

  • Make-a-Movie: Produce a movie explaining how to represent a real-world situation with an inequality.
  • Make-a-Map: Create a concept map identifying all of the possible values for x in the inequality 0 < x < 6. 
  • Creative Coding: Code a math problem involving an inequality and challenge a classmate to solve it. 

More to Explore 

Related BrainPOP Topics: Deepen understanding of expressions and equations with these topics: Graphing and Solving Inequalities, Graphing Linear Equations, and Equations with Variables.

Teacher Support Resources: