Exponents | Maths

Our maths focus was to understand how to solve equations that contain or use exponents. Exponents are small numbers that take place next to numbers on the top right. For example 2³  is a number containing an exponent because there is a smaller number taking place on the top right of a larger number.

An exponent number determines how many times the number is multiplied by itself, for example 2³ is equal to 2x2x2 because it is multiplying itself by three (which is the exponent number). 2x2x2 is 8, and we can solve this by knowing 2x2 is 4, and 4x2 is 8.

For our keeping clever task, we solved the exponents 5⁶, 2⁹, 6⁴, 93, 10⁴ and 7⁵. I solved these by multiplying 5x5x5x5x5x5=15,625, 2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2=512, 6x6x6x6=1,296, 9x9x9=729, 10x10x10x10=10,000 and 7x7x7x7x7-16,807. The strategies I used were repeated addition and long multiplication.

The next part of our set maths task was to organize the exponents answers in chronological order from smallest to largest. The order is 512 (2⁹), 729 (93), 1296 (6⁴), 10000 (10⁴), 15925 (5⁶) and 16807 (7⁵). I created a DLO to display the strategy and learning that I used for this lesson.

I found this task very fun because I was able to practice multiplication and expanded my understanding of algebraic maths equations linking to exponents.