SOLs Covered: 6.NS.2 Integer Relationships & Absolute Value
Math Unit: 01 Introduction to Integers
Daily Agenda: August 26-29, 2024
Upcoming Assessments: Quiz 1.01 Introduction to Integers & Absolute Value (Wed. 9/4)
Greetings! We've made it through the second week of school and we've officially started tackling math. Before I get into this week's math happenings, I realized I hadn't pointed out some of the features of these emails. On top of listing the SOLs and topics covered each week and listing any upcoming assessments, I also include a link to the unit folder, which contains copies of our assignments along with some additional resources, as well as a link to our Daily Agenda, which lists out what is planned for each day. This is to allow families to both see what's happening on a daily basis as well as help students keep up with things that are graded (clearly if they miss class for any reason. That being said, we haven't gotten through everything on the plans on any given day, as you can see when things get carried over to the next day, so there will be times when something on the plans gets nixed officially, but they are still great resources for either additional practice or review. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions about any of this or if something pops up in the future about a specific topic.
Now onto this week's math. We've started off on a seemingly easy topic, the introduction of integers, but this can be a tricky one for new middle schoolers as they've had very limited exposure to the negative side of integers in the past. While they've probably seen negative numbers pop up in regards to temperature or possibly related to money, it's still relatively unknown to them and there are lots of hidden tricky areas along the way. For instance, we cover which keywords mean a negative value versus a positive value, but a child's perception of these things can be skewed. In our math problems as well as in an adults mind, we recognize that a withdrawal from the bank means a negative, but many kids have seen their parents make withdrawals at the ATM to give them money and the kids then perceive this as a positive as they've gained money. Conversely, if a kid has ever turned over gifted money to be deposited into a savings account, they perceive that as a negative as they no longer have that money in their possession. For these reasons, we've put a bit of extra time into some discussion on these things and while their first instinct is still to go with their original thought, they are catching it and self correcting faster.
We've also been practicing modeling integers with counters and on the number line. They quickly grasped how to represent integers with chips and how to plot their points on a numbered number line, but we're still working on comparing and ordering and creating a number line from scratch. This is an understandable struggle for several reasons. Depending on how the two-color counters were presented to them in elementary school, they might not recognize from counters alone that any negative value is automatically less than a positive value as they're just seeing the amount of counters on the table in front of them. This is why we also use the number lines, but again we see some struggle when adding the numbers on the negative side and/or if they have to use it counting by anything other than intervals of one. We've already seen vast improvement with both, but we'll review this again on Tuesday as well as cover absolute value, which at this stage is still relatively simple (we're not working it into operations at this time or using them as grouping symbols yet). As long as things go as planned on Tuesday, we'll be taking our first quiz on Wednesday. We do already have a small grade in the gradebook, which you can see on ParentVUE/StudentVUE, but I want to caution families not to immediately become worried as it was only a four point check for understanding and thus just one question wrong automatically drops to a 75C and two or more would drop to failing. All is not lost though as they kids get a second attempt on it (and will continue to get a second attempt for all "Checks for Understanding" - CFUs - in the future) 12 hours after it's been submitted; the delay is added to ensure the students have time to think about what they got wrong and look at their resources before jumping back in and making the same mistakes a second time.
I've still got a few things to wrap up before I can head out for the four day weekend, so I'm closing it out here but as always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. I hope everyone has an absolutely amazing holiday weekend!