I "Heart" Scavenger Hunts!

Today I taught power and quotient rule of exponents (I did product rule the other day).  I wasn't ready to introduce negative exponents just yet because I didn't want it to be information overload- so I'll be doing that on Thursday/Friday this week.  I'm on block schedule and always looking for activites that give them a chance to get out of their seats.  I do scavenger hunts about once in awhile and LOVE them.  I figured this would be a good topic for it.  Scavenger hunts are a great way  for students to cover many objectives and let students check their answers as they go.  I also hear a lot of math discussion between students and less "Mrs. Wilson how do I do this?"

I created 12 problems in which the answer to one problem leads to the next problem.  I put them on pink paper in honor of Valentine's Day this week!  I also made a worksheet for them to be able to write down and simplfy the expressions as they worked through the activity.

I posted the 12 problems throughout my room and in the hallway:

I love this trapezoid problem!

I put them in groups of 2-3 and assigned them each a place to start.  The entire activity took approximately 30 minutes and they all understood their exponent rules by the end.  Victory!  Here is a picture of one of my students' paper once she had finished:

I'll be covering negative exponents then reviewing all the rules next class with a Koosh Ball game.  We decided to rename this unit "Exponent Extravaganza!" :)