In 8th grade we expect that students already know how to solve one step equations. Many of them do, but there are others that struggle with them. I work with students who qualify for math lab, a second dose of math during the day. The majority of my students missed basic concepts when they were supposed to learn them in a previous grade. So, practicing solving one-step equations works as a review for most students, but it seems like a new topic for others.
Today I’ll share with you 12 activities and ideas to get your students understanding and practicing with solving one step equations.
One thing I’ve learned over the years is to look at teaching skills differently, depending on what students need. For solving one-step equations, it really needs to be automatic. Students shouldn’t have to do a ton of thinking when solving them. It needs to become natural. So practicing solving one step equations looks different than more involved, conceptual topics. The key to getting students to be fluent with this skills is repetition, repetition, repetition. Did I mention repetition?
The activities that I’ve collected on this list have a heavy emphasis in fluency practice. Some of the activities work with partners or small groups. Others are great for independent practice in math stations, homework, etc. Overall, if you have your students practice with these types of activities regularly, they’ll become very fluent with this skill.
The list of activities:
Cootie Catcher Activity for One Step Equations
Snowball Fight
Kahoot for Solving One Step Equations
Let dig into the activities
Let’s look at each of the activities and what they have to offer for your classroom. As you learn more about the activities, you’ll see activities for whole class, small group, and independent practice. Also, these activities work for bell rings, practice activities and some of them could work for homework.
One Step Equations Mazes
If you haven’t used math mazes in your classroom before, I’d suggest you try them out. I wasn’t always a believer, but one day I used them out of desperation and I’ve never looked back. Mazes are great for getting students to solve problems and get practice, without realizing how many problems they really are solving. We complete one of these mazes everyday at the beginning of class. You can put them into a dry-erase sleeve or pocket if you have multiple classes throughout the day.
I use mazes with advanced students as well as with my math lab classes. This particular set of mazes includes 4 mazes and they increase in complexity from one maze to the next. The first one is adding and subtracting, the second one has integers, the third one is multiplying and dividing, and the last one is a mix of one step equations with all of the operations. This activity serves as great way to get consistent practice with this skill.
If you want even more fun math mazes, we send a FREE maze on middle school math concepts exclusively to members of the Maze of the Month club. If you want to join and get FREE math mazes that aren’t available anywhere else, sign up here:
Sign me up for the Maze of the Month club.
One Step Equations Pong
Kids love throw backs to things from a really long time ago (and I know some teachers who enjoy them too!). It’s funny how they think 10 years ago is ancient times. Well, this equations game from XP Math goes back to the days of Pong and adds in some solving one step equations in the process. There are a couple of ways to customize this game: by the level of math problems and by level of computer prowess. I would suggest letting the students have a calculator because some of the number they use aren’t common numbers. 
Also, you might want to play the game alongside the students and have them compete with you. They’ll get a kick out of that and they tend to be very competitive.
Tic Tac Toe Game
Tic tac toe is a fun way to practice one step equations in many different forms. This game can be used as partner work, a game, a small group activity, for fast finishers, or for a whole class activity. My students enjoy playing tic tac toe and they forget they’re practicing solving one step equations. This tic tac toe game for one step equations includes 8 games, increasing in complexity from addition to subtraction to integers to multiplication and division. This is a great way to review solving one step equations.
When students play in partners they each take a symbol, either x’s or o’s. They go back and forth solving the equations and if they do it right, they put their symbol in the square. My kids really get into this game, and I love hearing them talk about the problems they’re solving.
Cooperative Whiteboards
Kids practice solving one-step equations in the cooperative whiteboard activity by sharing a whiteboard of some kind and solving problems on their section/whiteboard. You can have them all working on the same problem and then they check with each other to make sure that they have the same answers. Another variation is for everyone to be working on a different problem, but the answers are the same to all the problems. You could set this up in centers and have students rotate.
The link for this idea goes to a blog post with a lot of ideas for solving equations. Halfway down the page she describes what she calls “Placemat Equations”, which can be done with dry-erase sleeves or large student whiteboards. You can download a few free placemats, but they are two step equations. If you need a set of problems for this activity, you can click this link for a worksheet of problems you could use.
Cootie Catcher Activity for One Step Equations
A few years ago I tried a cootie catcher with my students and they loved it. I don’t play this game with students very often, so it’s novel when we do it. This one step equations cootie catcher includes two different cootie catchers. One of them is night and the other is day. You have students battle each other with their cootie catchers. If you want to just have them complete the problems they can do that, too. Make sure that you give them an example before you have them play.
This download includes 2 cootie catchers with 8 one step equations per cootie catcher, a student record sheet, answer keys, and a visual guide for folding the cootie catcher. The problems themselves are not very complicated and it works best when students are just learning this concepts.
Equation Wheels
I want to try this Equations Wheels activity from Miss Calculate in my math lab class as a fast finisher activity. It could be used with many other topics and not just with one step equations. You’ll need some one step equations and lots of clothes pins. You write the equations on the wheel and the answers on the back of the wheel. Also, the answers will be written on both sides of the clothes pins. Looking at the pictures in her post made this activity clear for me about how this works. You can also download a blank wheel from the linked blog post.
Snowball Fight
A snowball fight in the classroom will brighten everyone’s day, regardless of the season. The snowball fight is created by having everyone write a one-step equation on a piece of paper. Then, you crumple the paper up into a “snowball”. When you say go everyone starts throwing snowballs until you say stop. At this point everyone uncrumples the paper and completes the problem on the snowball. You throw the snowballs again and everyone checks to make sure the answer is right.
This technique also works with reflection or asking questions. It comes from the brain break family of activities. One of the best parts is that no prep is required.
Line Puzzle Activity
This Line Puzzle Activity is a freebie that you can download on TeachersPayTeachers. The puzzle aspect of it makes practicing with one step equations fun. I’ve never seen a puzzle activity quite like this before. You’ll want to make sure your students have a ruler when they complete this so students can be precise in their answers. You’ll notice that some of the answers are negative integers, so your students need to be familiar with integers for this activity. This works great as a practice activity for 7th or 8th graders.
Matching Cards
You can catch a free set of matching cards for practicing solving one step equations from Math in the Middle’s blog. On her blog she explain some different activities you can try with them. She provides a set of cards that have 8 groups of four. There are a few different ways that you can use these cards. First, you can give everyone a card on the way into the room. Then, they have to see if they can find the 3 other people who have the same solution as them.
Also, you could have students work in pairs and try to find the 8 sets of matching cards. In addition, this could really be used as a fast finisher activity.
Kahoot for Solving One Step Equations
Kahoot has a few different uses. My favorite part about it is the ability to use this game for a formative assessment. You can download a pretty comprehensive data sheet to your Google Drive at the end of the game.
This Kahoot game consists of 20 questions. 18 of the questions look like basic one step equations expressions. The last two questions step it up a level and are word problems. This game works perfect as a pre-assessment, or as practice.
Quiz on Quizizz
Quizizz is similar to Kahoot except that students can go at their own pace (I prefer using the Homework play option). You’ll get a lot of reporting about student progress from Quizizz. It has a wide variety of one step equation in this Quizizz game that I would use in class. This particular Quizizz game combines both traditional questions and a couple word problems. I like to use Quizizz as a warm-up, cyclical review for students. You can do the same topic for a couple of weeks. This gives students a chance to improve their skill.
Jeopardy
Jeopardy has a lot of the features I look for in a review game. The whole class can play at the same time and you don’t have to finish the whole game for it to be effective. In my class, when we play Jeopardy everyone answers all of the questions. I don’t play team style. It seems that in team style most kids aren’t engaged. I have students keep track of their own points and keep an eye on which students are getting it, and which ones aren’t.
In this particular Jeopardy game you’ll find equations to solve under the following categories: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and decimals. It has 25 total questions. Students will have to work with negative numbers, so this works better with students with those skills.
Try one thing..
This collection of one step equation activities will help you to put a little spice into your students’ daily practice. You don’t have to try and incorporate all of the activities. I would start with one and see how it goes. Use one for cyclical review for the whole class or for a bell ringer when they walk into class. Remember that practicing one step questions will build a foundation for so many other concepts that we teach in middle school. These activities will help you give them lots and lots of opportunities to practice.
Thanks so much for reading. Until next time!
