SOLs Covered: SOL 8.14 Simplifying & Evaluating Algebraic Expressions; 8.4 Consumer Math
Math Unit: 08 Ratios, Rates, & Proportions
Daily Agenda: October 31, 2022 & November 1-4, 2022
Upcoming Assessments: Quiz 2.01 Consumer Math (A-Thurs. 11/17; B-Fri. 11/18)
Happy Friday, folks! I hope everyone has had an amazing week! We've had a pretty amazing week here in the land of math and I'm super proud of how hard the kids have worked. As previously mentioned, I planned a "catch-up day" this week as all the recent absences and other factors had led to some not great grades for some kids. Some kids needed that time to finish the second test of the year, in part because they were so focused and putting so much extra effort into it and their efforts really paid off. That being said, some students still aren't putting their efforts into showing their work. If their methods were getting them good results, I wouldn't be pushing them to write things out, but since that isn't the case, please help me by encouraging the kids to write things out more, especially as the work will get more complicated from this point out.
Back to the catch-up day and final term grades in general, there are still some students who still need just a little more effort/work to get themselves up to the next level. For some kids, that means taking a currently failing grade (anything below 60% is failing) up to passing, but there are many how are right on the edge of bumping up to the next letter or adding a plus to their grade. I'd originally told the kids I would cut work off today, but I'm extending it through the weekend to allow those who are willing to do the work to have that opportunity if they want to take it. Please help me by encouraging all kids to take advantage of this opportunity, which includes an extension on the IXL extra credit previously mentioned. There is one thing that I cannot extend the deadline for as it is set by the county; the Edmentum diagnostic test that some kids still need to complete will close at 11PM tonight, so if students have a 0F for the RB Week 8 grade, please encourage them to complete that tonight.
To help prevent students from falling behind in the future, especially as we move further into flu season, I'd like to remind everyone that almost all of my work can be completed at home if students are absent. I post everything for my class in some form to our class Canvas page (Canvas being similar to Google Classroom, but with some additional features not currently available from Google). Some work is handed out on paper in the classroom, but I still have a digital copy of it on Canvas; there are also some things that might be completed in another way (like the Edmentum work for royal block or the tests), but I still post details on Canvas. Everything outside of tests can be completed at home, though there might be some exceptions to this that can be worked out on a case by case basis, so please reach out if there are extenuating circumstances we might need to take into account.
The last part of the week was spent reviewing ratios, rates, and proportions. While this isn't a "Math 8 SOL," it's a topic that will lend itself to making our next topic, consumer math, easier and since the time kids would have originally learned the topic was during what I refer to as the "COVID years of teaching," I was concerned the kids might not have a solid grasp on the topic and felt the review was needed. The kids have done well with it and we'll be jumping into consumer math first thing next week. Right now the plan is that we'll take the quiz for the unit the following week, but we'll see if we have to adjust things once we get into it.
Well, it's yet again gotten far to late for me to still be at school on a Friday night, so I'm going to wrap things up here. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions. I'm not always as connected to my school account on the weekends, but I'll try to keep my eye out for any kids (or their grownups) with questions that might be related to their final push to improve grades. I hope everyone has an amazing weekend!