Post date: Mar 19, 2021 6:57:59 PM
MSM2 Block 1
SOLs Covered: 8.9 Pythagorean Theorem; 8.5 Angle Relationships
Math Unit: 18 Pythagorean Theorem; 19 Angle Relationships
Daily Agenda: March 15-19, 2021
Upcoming Assessments: 3.04 Pythagorean Theorem & Angle Relationships Quiz (Fri. 3/26/21)
Math 7H Blocks 2 & 3
SOLs Covered: 8.9 Pythagorean Theorem; 8.5 Angle Relationships
Math Unit: 18 Pythagorean Theorem; 19 Angle Relationships
Daily Agenda: March 15-19, 2021
Upcoming Assessments: 3.04 Pythagorean Theorem & Angle Relationships Quiz (Fri. 3/26/21)
Greetings! I hope everyone has had an amazing week! I'll admit to being tired and thus dragging most of the week, but it's been a great week here in my classroom despite that. Our in-person routines are for the most part set at this point and we've adjusted fairly well to the newest schedule. There are still a few virtual students logging in late, so I recommend that those students try to set alarms to remind themselves. To help with this, I've updated the alarms on a site I shared at the beginning of the school year. Students simply need to bookmark this page on their Chromebooks and open it each morning after they've opened up their other necessary pages. Reminder!!! That means first opening CCPS Rapid Identity, second Google Drive from RI (not a bookmark), and only then opening Canvas from RI (NOT a bookmark!).
In regards to math, we started the week by continuing our work on the Pythagorean theorem. The kids did an awesome job with the topic, though I think it was in part that middle school sense of humor because of how often we had to use the phrase "we're missing a leg." Gotta love middle schoolers! While I started the work showing them the "old school" way to calculate a missing side, be it a leg or the hypotenuse, we moved onto how to rewrite the formula to solve for a missing variable in order to plug everything into Desmos. The kids were a little intimidate at first, but they were feeling much more comfortable by the end of the unit.
Since the Pythagorean theorem unit will be combined with the next for the last quiz of the term, we moved onto the beginning of our angle relationships unit. While we've just barely started, the kids are doing well so far with reviewing the basics of angles. After introducing the new vocabulary for this topic, a few again feeling are a little intimidated at the moment with wrapping their heads around how angles can have more than one relationship, but I think my comparison to family relationships (i.e. how they can be their parents' child, their siblings' brother or sister, and their grandparents' grandchild all at the same time) is helping a little. I also promised that once we get into actually working with these concepts and we have a few more examples under our belts, they'll feel just as comfortable with this topic as they did with all the others of the year.
On an unrelated note, I wanted to offer up my help to any students who might be struggling with some of the "mathy" parts of science. While talking to one of my students who is currently taking honors science (which I believe is a high school credit course), they mentioned that they were struggling with balancing chemical equations. Though there are aspects of chemistry that can stump me still to this day, balancing chemical equations is totally my jam! Since things with hybrid learning have settled down, I should be able to offer up some "office hours" after lunch, so on top of helping with math, I'd be happy to help with things like this as well. Seriously... I'm such a nerd that I had FUN working some of the problems out after lunch today. Now, these are not official office hours as we are still technically in 3rd block after lunch, so if students have required async work for their 3rd block class they need to get through, they should do that first, but if that's all done, students simply need to check with me to see if I'd be able to meet with them that day. I can't promise to do this everyday as I will sometimes need to continue work with my own 3rd block class or tend to other tasks, but if I'm free, then I'm more than happy to help!
Well, that should cover everything for this week. As always, please let me know if you have any questions. Hope everyone has an amazing weekend!