Post date: Nov 15, 2019 7:39:36 PM
MSM2 Periods 1 & 4
SOLs Covered: 8.14&17 Combining Like Terms, Distributive Property, & Multi-Step Equations
Math Unit: 11 Multi-Step Equations
Daily Agenda: Nov. 11-15, 2019
Upcoming Assessments: 2.02 Inequalities Quiz (TBD after fall break)
Math 7H Period 3
SOLs Covered: 8.14&17 Combining Like Terms, Distributive Property, & Multi-Step Equations
Math Unit: 12 Multi-Step Equations
Daily Agenda: Nov. 11-15, 2019
Upcoming Assessments: 2.02 Inequalities Quiz (TBD after fall break)
Greetings! This week we continued working on multi-step equations. The kids do great when we're all working together but lack confidence when working on their own (they doubt their work and second guess their answers), so I stretched the unit out over the rest of the week and we ended up taking the quiz today. Overall they've done really great with it but there is still a lot of self-doubt (even when their grades should prove they understand it), so I will continue to provide the extra encouragement and reinforcement while we continue working with algebra next week as we start solving and graphing inequalities. As previously mentioned, I've got an activity involving Oreos™ and pretzel sticks planned for next week. The letter for that went out today (Pd 1 & 3) or yesterday (Pd 4); it only needs to be returned if you plan to send supplies in (to help keep track of who helped out so I can thank folks and give the kids Lambie Points) or if there's a food allergy/restriction that needs to be taken into consideration. Thank you so much to those who have already sent in supplies!!!
As previously mentioned, the county has now opened up the parent/guardian side of Canvas. While I haven't sifted through all of that information yet, I did post a link to the county page on the school website's announcement board and I'm including it here for those who might be interested. I'm far from calling myself an expert with Canvas, but please feel free to reach out if you have any questions. Even if I don't have the answers myself, I'm more than happy to reach out to those who might know, plus it lets me know what parents/guardians are needing. This term, I do plan for us to try some of our assignments on Canvas, so the kids will be getting a little more exposure to the site as well. Since I'm not 100% confident with Canvas yet, I've told the kids we'll have backup copies of the assignments on Google Classroom still to ensure they get credit for their work no matter what as that's been the number one complaint I've heard from my older nieces in high school. The plan is that we'll do all of the work on Google Classroom (since that's what we are all currently confident with) and then copy/paste everything into the Canvas copy of the assignment. We'll follow that plan until we've ironed out any possible issues.
Before I wrap this up, I had a student asking about getting a textbook for the class earlier today. There are still math textbooks in the building, but I do not have any in my class as I am not a huge fan of them. The county hasn't adopted new textbooks for math during my career here in Chesterfield and the books were already old when I started teaching 15 years ago. They are no longer aligned with our current curriculum or the current standards and furthermore, they have problems in them about things like VHS tapes and cassette tapes! I'd have to explain what those dinosaur relics are first before I even got around to teaching the math to go along with it. That being said, I understand and completely appreciate that folks might be looking for additional resources. I can check with administration about getting books for those who might still want one, but I have loads of things available on or through my class website as well, including links to my unit folders (which have additional items to supplement what we use in class), my class and school Portaportal sites (Portaportal is a bookmarking site, which I've set up with different categories related to our topics and/or subjects), and the student digital resource sites the county math department built a few years ago (sadly not updated after the most recent curriculum/standard changes, but still great resources... though I'm biased since I helped build them in the beginning). I've shown all of this to the kids several times throughout the year, but I'll give reminders to all of the kids again next week just in case some have forgotten or need a reminder on how to navigate everything.
That should cover everything but as always, please feel free to reach out if you have any questions. Hope everyone has a great weekend!