Algebra 1 & middle school math

Practice pages that tell students when they're wrong.

Self-checking mazes, three-level escape rooms and error analysis for grades 6–12 — built in a real classroom, with an answer key on every page.

Get a free sub day See what's inside a unit
No prep. Print-ready PDF plus editable Word, every time.
Guided notes page showing each algebra step on its own line Combining like terms maze worksheet Error analysis page with student work to correct
130+ resources Grades 6–12 Answer key on every page PDF + editable Word PowerPoint & SMART Notebook slides
One topic, start to finish

Seven activities, a quiz, and the slides to teach from.

Teach it Monday, practise it all week, assess it Friday. One download covers the whole topic — and every problem is checked against every other activity in the unit, so nothing contradicts anything else.

Guided Notes Test Prep Practice Matching Maze Cut & Paste Escape Room Error Analysis
Quiz Pack — Forms A & B PowerPoint slides SMART Notebook slides

The quiz comes in two equivalent forms, so a retake is not the same paper twice. The slides come blank and completed — fill them in live on the board, and absent students still get the finished copy.

Box and whisker plot maze worksheet
Sample unit

Box & Whisker Plots

Five number summary, quartiles, IQR, outliers and comparing distributions — seven activities, a two-form quiz, and 15 slides for the board.

Why these work

The page does the first round of feedback.

  1. Wrong answers come from real mistakes

    Every distractor is an error I have watched students make — the dropped negative, the flipped inequality, the exponent read as the degree. Guessing does not survive that.

  2. A mistake leads somewhere, not nowhere

    On a maze, the most tempting wrong answer sits on a bar leaving that same square. A slip sends a student down a detour they can find their way back from instead of stranding them.

  3. Every step on its own line

    Worked examples isolate the variable vertically, one line of algebra per row. Students see how it happens rather than copying a crowded line.

Escape room level page with a decoder students solve into
Free, no strings

One complete sub day, ready to leave on your desk.

For the morning you wake up sick with nothing planned.

  • A full period of work — review, a maze, an escape room level
  • Complete answer key, so any substitute can run it
  • Print it once, keep it in the sub folder all year
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Cover of the three-day Algebra 1 sub plans packet
Also free

Seven things you can have right now.

Seven complete resources, free on TPT — including a full set of guided notes with the slides, and a whole no-prep sub day.

Solving Systems by Elimination — Guided Notes with PowerPoint & SMART Notebook slidesAlgebra 1Get it free
Sub Plans Day 1 — Integer Operations a full no-prep period7th gradeGet it free
Solving Equations Escape RoomAlgebra 1Get it free
Box & Whisker Plot MazeGrades 6–9Get it free
Graphing Systems of Inequalities Error AnalysisAlgebra 1Get it free
Multiplying Polynomials MatchingAlgebra 1Get it free
Standard Form to Slope-Intercept Cut & PasteGrades 8–9Get it free
Who makes these

I teach the lessons these come from.

I'm James Zeolla. I teach Algebra 1 in New York, and 7th grade math this year — seven years of middle school before that. Everything in the shop gets used with my own students before it reaches anyone else's, which is why the wrong answers are so specific: I have marked them a hundred times.

Start with the free sub day

The shop

Every unit is seven activities, a two-form quiz, and slides for the board. Buy here, or on TPT — same files either way.

Free resources

Seven complete resources, free on TPT. Nothing is a sample or a teaser — each one is the whole activity, answer key included.

From the classroom

What I have learned building practice that students can check themselves.

Practice design

The worksheet that grades itself

How a maze turns a practice page into instant feedback — and why every wrong answer on mine is a mistake I have actually marked.

Assessment

Error analysis is the best ten minutes in my math class

Hand students finished work with a mistake buried in it. You learn more in five minutes than a page of correct answers will ever tell you.

Sub plans

What to leave when you wake up sick at 5am

A sub day has to work without you in the room, and without the substitute knowing any math. Here is what that actually requires.

About

James Zeolla — Algebra 1 and 7th grade math, New York.

I taught 7th grade math for seven years before moving to Algebra 1, and this year I teach both. That span is the whole reason this shop covers grades 6 through 12: I have watched the same handful of misconceptions grow up and follow students from middle school into high school.

Dropping the negative off a leading coefficient. Forgetting to flip the inequality after dividing by a negative. Reading the exponent of the first term as the degree. Those are not random errors, and a practice page that ignores them is just arithmetic with extra steps.

How everything here gets made

Every activity is built for a real class of mine first. If a page does not work in period 3, it does not go in the shop. The wrong answers come from student work, the worked examples show one step per line, and every single page has an answer key — including the ones students self-check, because you still need to settle an argument quickly.

What you get in a download

A print-ready PDF and an editable Word file, every time. Guided notes also come with PowerPoint and SMART Notebook slides, blank and completed, so you can build the notes live on the board and absent students still get the finished copy.

Guided notes page Maze activity page Error analysis page Escape room level
Complete unit

Unit

Buy on TPT

Checkout takes card, Apple Pay and Google Pay. Files download straight after payment.

  • Guided NotesSteps shown one line at a time, with PowerPoint and SMART Notebook slides — blank and completed.
  • Test Prep PracticeVocabulary box, worked examples, and the question types that show up on the test.
  • Matching ActivityAnswers deliberately share numbers, so students cannot scan their way to the right one.
  • MazeSelf-checking. A wrong answer is not on any path leaving the square.
  • Cut & PastePaste boxes under each question, with a work space page.
  • Escape RoomThree levels, paper and pencil, no locks to buy.
  • Error AnalysisFinished student work with a mistake buried in it. We say mistake, never wrong.
  • Quiz — Forms A & BTwo equivalent forms, so a retake is not the same paper twice.
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Get in touch

A real person answers these — me, usually in the evening after my own grading.

Something wrong with a file?

Tell me before you leave a review and I will fix it and re-send, usually the same week. Misprints, a wrong answer key, a page that will not open — all worth an email.

Need something that does not exist yet?

I build units based on what teachers tell me they are short on. If you need a topic I have not covered, say so; it may well be next.

Buying for a department or school?

Multiple licenses are discounted, and I can put together a package for a whole course or grade team. Email me and we will work it out.

hello@mrzeollasmathshop.com