Teaching Algebra using Algebraic Tiles

We have been solving a lot of puzzles like this, which we found in pinterest and face book pages and my little one likes to solve it. It really helped her in learning algebra. 

 I don’t know why we hate algebra, when the pictures are replaced by the alphabets x,y….

 I was thinking about introducing algebraic equations to my daughter and started a conversation like this,

“When I have 2 stamps you have 4,

when I have 3 stamps you have 6,

when I have 4 stamps you have 8,

and when I have 5 stamps you have 10 ….”

She interrupted, “So, I have twice the stamps as that of you”

“Great, if I have x number of stamps, how many will you have? Let us use ‘x’ instead of any particular number. Ok”

“2x” she said.

“If I have x stamps and you have 3 more than that…”

“x+3”

“ if you have 2 fewer than mine”

“mm X-2”

That’s it. Now she knows how to write pre algebraic equation.   I gave these cards which I downloaded from here to arrange the word phrases and the corresponding equations. She enjoyed it.

Once she was good at forming equations, we started a lesson on how to solve it.  I used very simple single order expressions taken from Singapore primary questions.

Algebra tiles are really helpful in the introductory stage and here are two sample problems.

The second problem