Post date: Feb 25, 2018 3:41:20 PM
MSM2 Periods 1 & 2
SOLs Covered: 7.7 (7.6) Properties of Quadrilaterals
Math Unit: 19 Quadrilaterals
Daily Agenda: Feb. 19-23, 2018
CCPS Student Digital Resource: Quadrilaterals
Upcoming Assessments: 3.03 Similar Figures Quiz (Fri. 3/2)
Math 7H Period 3
SOLs Covered: 8.10 (8.9) Pythagorean Theorem
Math Unit: 19 Pythagorean Theorem
Daily Agenda: Feb. 19-23, 2018
CCPS Student Digital Resource: Pythagorean Theorem
Upcoming Assessments: 3.03 Geometric Transformations Quiz (Fri. 3/2)
After School Help Session: Thurs. 3/8/18, 3-4PM (Parent/guardian note or email required to stay.)
Howdy, folks! Let me start this update by letting everyone know that I might be a little slower with responding to emails and entering grades for a bit. While working Friday afternoon and waiting for the school play that evening, my school laptop crashed and seems to have seen its last days. I'm hoping the county will be fast with fixing or replacing it, especially since I also run our school's website, but I'm not sure how long it will take. Thankfully I have a personal laptop I can work on at home, but it's not an option for the school day. Also before getting into this week's math happenings, I have to talk about how fabulous the school play (Shrek the Musical, Jr) was! I'm so proud of all my students and my own niece who were part of the play! Our Ravens have so much talent!
This week the MSM2 kids were working on quadrilaterals. It's a relatively easy topic at first glance, but I think we all know by now that there are always hidden twists in questions, especially when you factor the SOLs into the mix. For this topic, some of the drawback is simply a struggle with how shapes have been presented to the kids all their life (i.e. this shape is a square, this shape is a rectangle, etc.), but with middle school math, kids are now expected to understand that they can be more than one thing (i.e. a square is also a rectangle, a rhombus, a parallelogram, and a quadrilateral). I try to help with this by comparing it to how the kids have more than one name (first, middle, last, maybe a nickname), but they have one name they prefer to go by all the time. The kids learned this in 6th grade, so it's more repetition this year. The next tricky part is the "Always, Sometimes, Never" aspect (i.e. all squares are rectangles, but rectangles are only sometimes squares). I've always used the comparison that "all pit bulls are dogs, but not all dogs are pit bulls" along with a "quadrilateral family tree" to help explain this. Additionally, the kids learned many of the attributes of the quadrilaterals last year, but we add in the diagonals this year. The kids were shown how to draw everything to help them visualize the attributes when handling questions. For the kids who took the time to draw everything out and memorize all my goofy expressions/phrases, they had excellent quiz results on Friday. For those who didn't, I'd like to encourage them to start taking that little bit of extra time and I promise they will see improved results.
The 7H kids worked on the Pythagorean theorem this week. After some laughs over struggling to pronounce Pythagorean theorem and hypotenuse, the kids did fairly well with the topic. There were a few struggles with word problems, but with extra instruction on how to draw them out and some extra tricks to go with it, the kids are better able to tackle the topic. There are still several needing to finish the quiz as there was a sneezing attack for one student that led to some comedic moments that were also a little distracting; rather than having the kids try to rush and finish, I told them they could have the time Monday to finish. We did get some time on one of our really nice days to get out and take pictures for our ongoing "Math Art Gallery" project. The kids had a great time and it made my heart happy to hear their exclamations over the geometry they were finding around them.
Well, I'm going to close things out here. As always, feel free to email with any questions; it might take me a little longer to get back to you as I mentioned earlier (i.e. the tragic death of my school laptop), but I will try to reply as soon as possible.