Ready to help your students master the order of operations with confidence?

These NO PREP guided notes make teaching and learning the order of operations clear, structured, and engaging. With a classroom-tested, step-by-step format, students learn how to evaluate expressions accurately by following the correct order, avoiding common mistakes, and explaining their reasoning. The organized layout helps students focus on understanding the process rather than memorizing steps or copying lengthy notes.

Perfect for introducing or reinforcing the concept, this resource includes both full-page printables and interactive notebook versions, allowing students to create a reusable reference tool they can rely on throughout the year.

This notes set is designed to help students confidently evaluate numerical expressions using the order of operations. The resource includes full-page worksheets as well as interactive notebook versions, giving flexibility for whole-class instruction, small groups, or independent practice. Each page emphasizes reasoning, structure, and accuracy to build strong foundational algebra skills.

Aligned to 6.EE.A.1, these notes support students in applying the order of operations to evaluate expressions with whole numbers, fractions, and exponents.

What’s Included

• Warm-Up: A short activity to activate prior knowledge about basic operations and grouping symbols.
• Important Vocabulary: Student-friendly, fill-in-the-blank definitions of essential ideas connected to evaluating expressions.
• Guided Notes: Step-by-step, fill-in-the-blank notes that teach how to evaluate expressions using the correct order.
• Guided Practice: Scaffolded examples modeling how to apply the order of operations accurately and explain each step.
• Independent Practice: Problems for students to complete independently to reinforce understanding and build confidence.
• Mastery Practice: Multi-step and real-world problems requiring careful application of the order of operations.
• Engage & Extend: Critical thinking tasks such as Think It Through, Which One Doesn’t Belong?, error analysis, and challenge problems.
• Wrap-Up & Summarize: Quick checks and reflection prompts to reinforce key ideas.
• Check Your Understanding: Multiple-choice or short-response items to assess mastery.
• Vocabulary Frayer Models: Graphic organizers to deepen understanding of important concepts
• Performance Task: A short, real-world mini-project requiring students to evaluate expressions and justify their reasoning, with a grading checklist included.
  

Why Teachers Love These Notes

• 100% NO PREP — print and teach
• Includes full-page and interactive notebook versions
• Builds strong reasoning and accuracy with multi-step expressions
• Helps prevent common mistakes through structured practice
• Ideal for special education and English Language Learners
• Creates a reusable reference tool for homework, quizzes, and review

Here’s what other teachers are saying about this resource:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Adelle W. says  “These notes made teaching and practicing order of operations so clear and simple for me and my students! I am obsessed with all your guided notes - thank you!”

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Chad B. says “My students love these notes and have actually requested them. Thank you for making the note taking process easy.”

This resource is part of these popular money-saving bundles:

Expressions & Equations Bundle

6th Grade Math Guided Notes Bundle
6th Grade Curriculum

You may also like these other supplemental resources that cover order of operations:

BINGO

Partner Activity

Scavenger Hunt

Puzzle

Additionally, these resources can help reinforce your students understanding of key concepts throughout the year:

6th Grade Math Homework
Full Year Worksheets
Full Year FUN Worksheets
Error Analysis

Guided notes are the foundation of my classroom. Here’s why:

• Guided notes keep all students actively engaged in class. Students follow along and fill in missing words and numbers and answer questions. They allow students to focus on problem solving rather than using their working memory to write down everything they hear the teacher say. 
• Students create their own reference guide to help them remember and internalize what they learned in class. They can easily refer back to what they learned in previous classes to help them with spiral review, homework, studying for assessments and most importantly building on prior knowledge to learn new concepts. 
• It helps students organize information and understand what is important. Middle school students are often new to the expectation of notetaking and guided notes are a perfect way to introduce this practice and perfect a lifelong skill. The blanks can be used as cues to help students decipher what is expected of them- they can tell if a longer definition should be recorded or a smaller blank means they should write an important vocabulary word or number. 
• They relieve the stress that many students feel when expected to accurately copy diagrams, figures and equations off the board. Having them right on their notes page allows them to focus on problem solving and less about accurately copying complex notes off the board. 
• Guided notes are especially beneficial for students with special education needs and English Language Learners and can easily be adapted to accommodate specific needs.

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Permission to copy for single classroom use only.