You had 26$ in your pocket. You purchased x pens at $3.50 each. You now have $8.50 in your pocket. Write and solve an equation to find the number of pens purchased

You had $26 which should be your total to figure out how many pen you bought

The pens were $3.50 each so to find out how many we bought we have to put it next to a variable being 'x'

we have 8.50 left so that has to be added to our equation

now that we have our equation, we use order of operations to figure out x

3.50x + 8.50=26 1. First we subtract 8.50 from our total

3.50x=17.50 2. we divide 3.50 from 17.50

x = 5

so you should have purchased 5 pens