SOLs Covered: 7.PFA.2 Simplify Numerical Expressions
Math Topic: 05 Simplify Numerical Expressions
Daily Agenda: October 13-17, 2025
Upcoming Assessments: Topic 5 Formative (Mon. 10/20); Unit 3 Expressions & Linear Equations (Fri. 11/7)
Greetings! I had to take off yesterday for appointments, so I'm playing catch up today and still have lots to do before leaving, so I'm going to try to make this a quick update. I do have to start by commending the students for doing so well while I was out. I know some weren't happy that I was gone for the day, but they kept it together and the reports I got from Ms. Randall and the teachers covering were good.
As mentioned in last week's update, we continued working on the newest topic (#5) this week. All grades for this unit will be going onto the second marking period, so most students are already starting the next term off with a 100 A+ as they've done a great job participating in our activities this week. We've progressed into our first bit of algebra work and thus far we've been predominately using algebra tiles to model everything. This week we've worked on combining like terms and utilizing the distributive property to simplify expressions. Next week I'll go over how to do the same things without the tiles (taking it from the concrete/representational into the more abstract). Many students will prefer one over the other, so we'll include discussion on how to take it from one to the other and vice versa.
Before I close things out, I just want to remind everyone that grades close for my class tonight at midnight for the first marking period, so if students have any assignment/assessment below a 100, they can still work on it tonight to pull it up. Additionally because of how I set things up electronically, Canvas will automatically "submit" at the cutoff anything they've worked on but possibly forgotten to submit, so I'll utilize the last few days of term to comb through all of those final submissions to ensure students have received the maximum credit due where applicable.
That should cover the week as well as the plans for the start of the next, so I'll close things out here. As always, please feel free to reach out if you have any questions. Hope everyone has a great weekend!