ALLISON SPAID

Order of Operations

A student asked me today what my favorite subject to teach is and I said, “Math, of course!”. To which, he replied, “What’s your favorite math topic to teach….[paused]…Nevermind, I know it has to be order of operations.” :) He’s not wrong.

Room Transformations

One of the reasons I love teaching order of operations is because I get to transform the classroom into a hospital operation room and it is actually the easiest room transformation I have ever done. Here’s what I do:

Tape a white plastic table cloth to the door frame and tape some hospital signs on the table cloth.
Play some hospital sound effects in the background (check out Spotify- they have a few options)
Put a mask, gloves and surgical robe at every student seat (you can grab all these materials on Amazon) Don’t forget to include Dr. badges! You can print them out as part of this download.
Lay down white butcher paper on a group of tables and free hand a gingerbread-like person on the paper using a thick marker.
Prep these order of operation cards (differentiated for basic-intermediate-challenge)

You’re ready to go!! I typically hold this activity right away in the morning so the day before I give the students their doctor ID badges and tell them they will need them to enter the classroom the next day. I don’t give them any other hints or ideas about what we will be doing the next day and they get SO excited and anticipation is VERY high the next morning when they show up with their ID cards :)

I give each group of students a pack of order of operation cards and explain that each pack represents one patient’s life! If they can correctly match every card in a set they will have saved the life of their patient. When they finish one pack, I advance the group to the next level and they have the chance to save another life. It is really fun to keep a tally going on the white board to see how many patients were saved!

You can get all these order of operation materials by clicking here!

This download includes the following:

Three levels of activity cards for differentiated instruction (basic, intermediate, advanced).
- Basic: multiplication/division & addition/subtraction
- Intermediate: parenthesis, multiplication/division & addition/subtraction
- Advanced: exponents, parenthesis, multiplication/division & addition/subtraction

Each level includes 12 task cards (6 matching pairs).