Math 7H Blocks 1 & 2
SOLs Covered: 7.1 Negative Exponents, Powers of Ten, & Scientific Notation
Math Unit: 04 Negative Exponents, Powers of Ten, & Scientific Notation
Daily Agenda: September 20-24, 2021
Upcoming Assessments: Quiz 1.03 Scientific Notation & Comparing/Order Real Numbers (Fri. 10/1)
MSM2 Block 4
SOLs Covered: 7.1 Negative Exponents, Powers of Ten, & Scientific Notation
Math Unit: 04 Negative Exponents, Powers of Ten, & Scientific Notation
Daily Agenda: September 20-24, 2021
Upcoming Assessments: Quiz 1.03 Scientific Notation & Comparing/Order Real Numbers (Fri. 10/1)
Good afternoon! I hope everyone has had an amazing week! This week's update is going to be on the "short and sweet" side since I still have to make the paper copies of backup notes, reviews, and quizzes.
I had to crack down on the kids a bit this week in regards to missing work, but the kids have worked really hard since then to get caught up. Not everyone is 100% caught up yet (and of course the quarantining of some students hasn't helped with this), but grades have drastically increased overall with all of their hard work and I'm so incredibly proud of the kids! I fully acknowledged to them that I know the start of school has been on the crazy side, so to help a little with this, I'm making next week a catchup week for ALEKS. This week required that students have completed a total of 30 topics by Sunday (9/26) and normally I would up it to 40 for the following week, but I'm going to keep it at 30 through October 3. Additionally, I generally only update on Mondays after the weekly report is sent to me, but I updated today with current levels. If students aren't yet at 30, I'll update again on Monday with any progress made over the weekend. Even with next week being a catchup ALEKS week, I still encourage the kids who have the required 30 to keep working. I'll add up to 5 extra points which can be used to "bank" time for the future and if unneeded, it can be used for extra credit points. Anything past that (35 total) will earn the student extra Lambie Points.
In regards to this week's math work, in addition to the new state fall SOL test on Thursday, we spent the week working on scientific notation. This isn't a completely new topic to the kids, but my unique approach to the topic probably is new to them. It could be a boring topic on it's own, but I put a twist on it by adding in some Marvel Comic elements to it. Very large positive values are obviously "Hulk numbers" with a positive exponent when written in scientific notation while very small positive values are "Ant-Man numbers" with a negative exponent. Of course the "regular" superheroes (fill-in with your favorite hero) aren't forgotten as those are all positive numbers with a zero exponent. We can't leave the negative values out of the mix either! Negative values with a positive exponent are "Abomination numbers" while negative numbers with negative exponents are "Yellowjacket numbers" and any "regular" supervillain (again fill-in with your favorite villain... because we all have one, right?) would take care of the negative values zero exponents. Even the kids who might not have been into the math part enjoyed the discussion and work since they were given a little time to talk about their favorite characters. I invited the kids who might not be big Marvel fans to come up with their own equivalents for whatever fandoms they do love, so I'm hoping to see some next week!
Well, those copies aren't going to make themselves, so I better wrap this up. As always, please let me know if you have any questions. Hope you all have an amazing weekend!!!