Type a short narrative that your students can turn into an equation. Here is an example:
Julie went to the grocery store and bought five apples, two bananas, and one pineapple. John went to the farmer's market and bought one apple, 10 bananas and one pineapple. Write an equation for each person in this story that shows the total number of fruit each person bought. Then graph your equation.
Write out the equations. In this example, the equations will look like the following:
Julie = x + y + z
John = x + y + z
Fill in the equation using the numbers in the store, such as the following:
Julie = 5 + 2 + 1
John = 1 + 10 + 1
Julie = 7 fruits
John = 12 fruits
Draw a bar graph that shows Julie's seven pieces of fruit and John's 12 pieces of fruit. To do this, draw an "x" and a "y" axis. Draw two bar graphs in two different colors.