SOLs Covered: SOL 8.3a,b Squares & Square Roots
Math Unit: Back-to-School; 01 Exponents, Powers & Roots
Daily Agenda: September 6-9, 2022
Upcoming Assessments: Quiz 1.01 Exponents/Roots & Real Number System (A-Tues. 9/20; B-Wed. 9/21)
Greetings new 8th grade families! In case you didn't get my email last week, I'm Kim Lambert, your child's math teacher for the year. You'll generally only get one "big" message at the end of every week giving you a general overview of what went on throughout the week. I can sometimes get a little carried away with these messages (I can't help it... I'm just a huge nerd and love my subject and teaching!), but I'll make sure I put the most important information in the first paragraph so if I do get longwinded, you can ignore my nerdy ramblings. These weekly updates will always have the same subject line (CJHS Math: Week ## // Semana ##), so that if I ever have to email for something aside from the regular update, you'll be able to easily distinguish it from the rest (ex. CJHS Math: Johnny's overall progress & grades, CJHS Math: Upcoming testing, etc.).
As you can imagine, this week has been filled with a ton of the usual back-to-school activities and information, just getting familiar with the basics of class, learning/reviewing the Canvas system, getting a few new "tech tricks" to add to the students' skillset, etc. For the second day of classes with each group, we started digging into our actual math work, which starts with perfect and imperfect squares. I did start by reviewing some of what they hopefully remember from previous years, just giving a basic overview of exponents, powers, and roots as eliminates of this will keep popping up in our work. We started delving a little deeper into the "supposedly" perfect squares (they just think they're perfect!) and imperfect squares (they might sometimes be a bit of a mess, but we love them anyway!). We'll wrap up the unit officially on Monday/Tuesday, which will see the kids earning their first grade for math class with a formative check, but we'll also be continuing with the concept into our second unit, the real number system.
Thank you to all the parents and guardians who completed all of "your homework" this week. I know we've thrown about a million forms at you this week, but we're all greatly appreciative of your help. I've gotten the forms for my class (Contact Form - Español and Syllabus - Español) back from most students, but there are still a few missing here and there so if folks could get those back, it would be greatly appreciated (let me know if a new copy is needed). With those forms, I also sent the following note:
If your family is experiencing difficulties at home, I would like to provide additional support at school. I understand that you are not always able to share the details and that’s okay. If your child is coming to school after a difficult night, morning, or weekend, please message me “Handle with Care.” Nothing else will be said or asked. This will let me know that your child may need extra time, patience, or help during the day.
I can't claim credit for the message as I found it floating around the interwebs the last year, but it perfectly expressed my own feelings on the matter, so I had to use it. Please don't ever hesitate to reach out if I can be of any help. I've also talked with the kids about how they can always let me know when they're having a rough day as well and that I'll work around it with them. I warned that it doesn't mean I'll let them out of their work and responsibilities altogether (they're kids, so someone always tries to test those limits), but I can let them work silently without bugging them, put their head down for a bit, or something along those lines. We all have rough days from time to time, so if I can help make their day a little easier, I'm more than happy to do so.
Well, I guess you can already see what I meant with my warning that I can get carried away (I'm sorry! I'm working on it!), so I'll go ahead and wrap this up here. I look forward to seeing where this year takes us! This is an amazing group of kids, so I'm expecting great things. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out.
Hope you all have an amazing weekend!