Math 7H Blocks 1 & 2
SOLs Covered: 8.9 Pythagorean Theorem; 8.5 Angle Relationships
Math Unit: 18 Pythagorean Theorem; 19 Angle Relationships
Daily Agenda: February 7-10, 2022
Upcoming Assessments: Quiz 3.04 Pythagorean Theorem & Angle Relationships (Fri. 2/18)
MSM2 Block 4
SOLs Covered: 8.9 Pythagorean Theorem; 8.5 Angle Relationships
Math Unit: 18 Pythagorean Theorem; 19 Angle Relationships
Daily Agenda: February 7-10, 2022
Upcoming Assessments: Quiz 3.04 Pythagorean Theorem & Angle Relationships (Fri. 2/18)
Greetings, folks! Since the week has wrapped up early for kids and they get an extra day off tomorrow, I'm going to send this out a day early in hopes that those who are behind on work will utilize some of that extra time to get caught up on missing/incomplete/low grade work. Most kids with less than ideal grades only have those lower grades because they have missing work and they can easily remedy that by completing those items. There are a few others who don't have much if any missing work, but they aren't putting in the same amount of effort they started the year with. While I hope it's just a winter slump and they'll start turning it around as the weather warms and the days start to brighten (something I have noticed can be a trend this time of year), I'm hoping these kids will start pushing and applying themselves more. I've sent a bunch of emails and made a few of my calls today, but I'll be working on more tomorrow and into next week, but please go ahead and check grades on StudentVUE/ParentVUE now if you have the time.
In regards to math class, it's been a week full of laughter in math class with a dash of cringiness thrown in since some kids were all too eager to be "chopping off legs" on right triangles as we worked on finding either missing legs or missing hypotenuses as we continued our Pythagorean theorem unit. The joys of teaching middle schoolers! That being said, it's the most fun I've had teaching what could otherwise be a very boring subject. I started by teaching them the traditional method of finding missing sides by substituting the known values in and solving for the unknown algebraically. After we mastered that, I then taught them how they could rewrite the formula to solve for different values, which then carried over into how to utilize Desmos to solve the problems faster. That definitely all sounds very boring, but when you have a couple kids gleefully yelling out that you're "missing a leg" while cackling maniacally... well, lets just say the week was interesting. This unit has also taught us who to avoid if we ever spot them on the street at night. I tried turning it around some by throwing out the idea of "cooks in the kitchen with missing chicken legs," but some kids were all too happy to continue on their path. At least I know they'll never forget the Pythagorean theorem though! We wrapped up the unit with the formative check, which I again did with the kids. As I told them, I plan to continue doing the formative checks with them for the rest of the regular units to get in a little more basic "test prep" into each week, going over basic test taking strategies and further discussing some of the "SOL tricks" I warn them about each unit.
As I told the kids, we won't take the quiz on this topic until next week as it is being combined with the unit we started today, angle relationships. We started that today with just a basic review of their elementary school knowledge of angles with a little new in the introduction of reflex angles (an angle between 180 and 360 degrees). We'll continue on with a little more protractor review on Monday before going into the bulk of the middle school angles standard, quizzing on everything next Friday.
Well that should cover everything, but let me know if you have any questions. Tomorrow is still a teacher workday for teachers, so I should be able to get back to you tomorrow as long as I catch your email between the faculty meeting and before I sink too far into prepping for the rest of the year. In regards to that, if there are any other teachers out there who read this and have any great resources for SOL test prep materials, please point me in their direction! And to pass along some of my own recommendations, Henrico has some great materials (at least for math), but I need to supplement with some more. Anyway, I hope everyone has a great weekend!