SOLs Covered: 7.PFA.2 Simplify Numerical Expressions
Math Topic: 05 Simplify Numerical Expressions
Daily Agenda: October 27-31, 2025
Upcoming Assessments: Unit 3 Expressions & Linear Equations (Tues. 11/18)
Good afternoon and happy Halloween! Before getting into this week's work, I want to start by asking all parents/guardians to ask their child for their copy this permission letter that was sent home with them today. It's much later than I'd hoped, but the week got away from me between meetings, coverage, and other job duties. The letter is to provide permission for your child to participate in a food activity next week when we return from the students' four-day weekend, so it's important that they get this letter signed and returned that first day back in order to get the food items for the activity (they'll otherwise have to use the standard algebra tiles in their place). Alternatively, a response to this email stating that your child has permission to use and consume the food items for this activity (Teddy Grahams and dehydrated mini marshmallows) will also suffice. My apologies for the short turn-around; it was unavoidable with the loss of some of my prep time this week.
For this week's math work, we continued working with algebraic expressions, simplifying expressions by using the distributive property and combining like terms as well as moving onto evaluating when given replacement values. I first showed the kids how to evaluate the "old school" way by writing out the algebraic expression, substituting the relevant values for each variable, then solving using the correct order of operations. We did this for multiple problems before I switched to showing them how to use the Desmos calculator for the work as this particular substandard of the SOL does allow for the use of Desmos. Several parts (like the solving of numerical expressions using the order of operations) do NOT allow for the use of any calculator unless the student has an official accommodation permitting its use.
We reviewed on Wednesday for a quiz on this topic and then took said quiz on Thursday, finishing up today. The results were mixed, either really high or really low, not much in between, but those students who were really low all failed to show their work as we'd been practicing for two weeks nor did they utilize the calculator when applicable as I'd showed them and then we all practiced. This quiz was of my own making and created on Canvas rather than Mastery Connect (via Canvas) as we do for all Carver math made quizzes, but they will have the same opportunity to correct their quiz and then be provided a second attempt. Please help me by encouraging the kids to take advantage of this opportunity, no matter their results (aside from those with a 100% as there's obviously nothing to correct in that case).
That should cover everything, so I'll close things out here and get this out early while the kids are working independently. As always, please feel free to reach out if you have any questions. Hope everyone has a great weekend!