Algebra: Introduction To The Basics

Hi, I'm Brooke, and this video is a brief introduction to algebra and more specifically, how it uses letters to represent numbers. Although pupils may find this difficult at first, you can always remind them that it's something that they've already started. In each of these questions, 14 adds something equals 23, and that's pretty much the same as 14 plus a equals 23. And. And this shows that any missing number can be replaced by a letter. And in this case, it's A. The following tips may be useful when introducing the use of letters instead of numbers. So if we look at this example here, it's useful to use the word something when describing an equation. So 38, add something minus 2 equals 52. The next tip is to make it a mystery. So you can hide a value inside a box or an envelope. And you could describe it as if something add 18 equals 44. What number is inside the envelope? Tip number three would be to think of a physical object. So in this case, we've got four A, and you could use four apples. So four apples equals 12. And then I'd be asking the pupils, what is one apple worth? Finally, you can challenge pupils by asking them to turn problems into algebra questions. This could become 16 times B equals 32.