SOLs Covered: 7.MG.2 Similar Figures; 7.MG.1 Surface Area & Volume of Rectangular Prisms & Cylinders
Math Topic: 10 Similarity; 11 Surface Area & Volume
Daily Agenda: February 9-13, 2026
Upcoming Assessments: Topic 11 Formative Check (Wed. 2/18); Unit 7 Surface Area & Volume (Thurs. 2/19)
Greetings! We're finally back to normal... well, as normal as it ever gets in a middle school, especially the day before Valentine's. While the kids were a little extra energized (thus draining a little of my own energy), they mostly exhibited good behavior and choices throughout the day, for which I'm very grateful. That being said, we've had to do a lot of fusing at kids for missing work. I know some of that is because of how weird the past few weeks have been, which includes a lot of flu-related absences on top of all the weird weather, but we still need kids to get back on track with their work. I've given some extra time to help with that this week and I've added an additional feature to our class Canvas homepage, a list of just the graded assignments linked directly to the digital copy of the assignment.
Mrs. Randall and I are already in the process of reaching out to parents/guardians to ensure that everyone is aware of current academic standings, but please support us by checking ParentVUE and speaking with your child about their missing work and grades. I want to remind everyone that digital copies of all work is posted to Canvas, even for those things done on paper, so if students have lost a paper, it can be completed electronically, on regular notebook paper, or you can print a new copy, however due to the paper budget being tight, we are unable to provide a new paper copy as we are not permitted to make excess copies. There is no extra credit this year as I allow students to redo work (including assessments) as many times as necessary to improve their grade as long as it's completed by that term's deadline (which is Friday, March 13th for this term).
For class this week, we reviewed everything for the last unit, which encompassed both quadrilaterals (Topic 9) and similar figures (Topic 10). The students then had Tuesday and Wednesday to work on the Unit 6 summative assessment along with time to work on making up missing work or correcting already completed work to improve their scores. Some students really used that time wisely and have improved their grades tremendously with the extra time. The rest of the week has been spent on the new topic, surface area and volume of rectangular prisms and cylinders. We've only covered the basics at this point, which is fairly straight forward. We'll be getting into the more complicated parts next week.
That should cover everything, but please feel free to email if you have any questions. Just a reminder that I do not respond to emails outside of working hours in efforts to establish a more healthy work/life balance, but I will get back to you Monday. I hope everyone has an amazing weekend!