SOLs Covered: 7.NS.3 Analyze Square Roots & Perfect Squares
Math Topic: 00 Back-to-School; 01 Squares & Square Roots
Daily Agenda: August 25-28, 2025
Upcoming Assessments: MAPS Testing (Mon. 8/31); Unit 1 Exponents & Powers (Fri. 9/11)
Greetings! We've officially made it through the first week and I'm looking forward to what this year will bring! As we normally find at the start of the school year, things are usually a little more chaotic than once we get fully into the year and have established routines, but the kids have rolled with the many changes these first few days have brought. One change we've noticed at an increased level this year is how many schedule changes some kids have had, so if your child wasn't originally enrolled in my class by the end of last week, you would have missed my introductory email, but you can read it here on my class website.
The kids are already discovering that I'm very structured in the sense that I have a dedicated spot for everything, generally always have the supply or tool needed for any job, and that they will always know what to expect from me. They have probably also figured out that I'm a bit of a goofball, so even when they might not love the current topic, we can still have fun and even get a few laughs throughout class. I fully recognize that some parts of math class can be a little boring for some people, but I try to counter that either by connecting it to a real world form of math (because I also fully recognize that "school math" and "real world math" can often be completely different things) or by teaching it with a "twist" (ex. the Marvel connection to scientific notation I mentioned last week).
Most of the week has just been learning classroom procedures, school expectations, and getting to know each other. We've worked under two different schedules this week, both the regular and the no flex, and students will be introduced to another on Monday as we will be taking the MAP test and thus we'll be on the testing schedule (same on Wednesday for the reading MAP), but we should be on the regular schedule most of the time moving forward. I make note of what schedule we're on each day on the Daily Agenda, which I always link at the top of these emails. This is both so students know what to expect from the day and so parents/guardians know in case they want to schedule appointments around things.
We did start on our first math topic of the year, which is predominately a review of one covered in sixth grade: perfect squares and square roots. We delve a little deeper into the topic and "preview" the idea of imperfect squares (all those between the perfect squares), which is a Math 8 topic they'll cover next year. We'll continue this next week before continuing our work with exponents in a few other areas. Students also took the in-house Math 7 pretest today; this is a low-pressure assessment as it is used in a more diagnostic way to see areas of strength and weakness as well as to have a comparison for the end of the year posttest, allowing us to gauge the growth students make academically this year. Those who didn't finish or were absent will be given time to work next week, so they don't have to do anything for math this weekend aside from reviewing what has been covered, which can include playing some of the related games I've posted in Canvas.
That should cover all the big stuff from the week, so I'm going to wrap things up here. If you have any questions or concerns throughout the year, please feel free to email, though I'll warn/remind that I'm trying to build a better work/life balance, thus I'm trying not to check email over the weekends and at night. I can promise though that I'll always respond within 24 working hours.
I hope everyone has an amazing weekend!