SOLs Covered: 7.PFA.2 Expressions; 7.PFA.3 Equations
Math Topic: 05 Simplifying Expressions; 06 Two-Step Equations
Daily Agenda: November 4-6, 2026
Upcoming Assessments: Unit 3 Expressions & Equations (Wed. 11/18)
Important Note: Friday, November 13 is a 3-Hour early release
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Good afternoon! Today has been a mentally exhausting day after coming in only to find that we were expected to start the day without power and weren't given any kind of ETA on when it would be back up. Thankfully it came back during first block, but we still had to wait for the WiFi to come back up and breakfast was obviously delayed. Between that and low attendance numbers (likely due to the weather and power outages), I kept today a mellow day and bumped the due dates for today's work to Monday.
Due dates will be an important component for students this term as they will now be feeling the less fun side of the PBIS rewards in that they will have to "pay the late fee" for any work turned in after the deadline. We started Wednesday off with a "term reset," both organizing our materials (cleaning out notebooks, setting up dividers for some students, organizing papers, etc.) and discussing the new components of the PBIS rewards. If students do not have enough points for the late fee, their grades will be reduced by 10%, but they can always "pay" the fee late if they earn points after the fact. Students will also have to "buy" open notes and/or retakes for summatives moving forward (corrections will always be "free" but only earn back half credit rather than full credit that a retake can get).
We discussed how students should budget their points now, being sure to save some for emergency academic purposes in a similar way to how we as adults have to budget our money to ensure we can pay our bills and have emergency funds set aside before we can buy treats for ourselves. Students also got the chance to "shop" again with their points and I was truly proud of how many were thinking through how many points they should save up before spending some on the treats. I'm also having conversations with them about what they might NEED to spend their points on in the future rather than what they WANT to spend their points on now, but some students still maxed out on this latest shopping day, so Monday each class will start by checking over grades and students will have to calculate how many points they will need to spend to turn in any work (currently 3 things are past the original due date) to avoid having their grade impacted by the lateness.
The point system works well with our current algebra topics as we can easily create expressions to go with the different scenarios (ex. if the late fee is 10 points per day or 10d, it would cost 30 points to turn an assignment in 3 days late: 10d = 10(3) = 30). Students often ask how they'll use math in their everyday life and this is the perfect example for it, so it's my hope that it will make more sense for them and create a greater understanding. Another way of making the topic make more sense for them is my "Sweet Algebra" activity that replaces the algebra tiles with Teddy Grahams and mini marshmallows (vegan options given to those students who can't have pork). Making math hands-on helps most kids understand it better, but making it "stomach-on" as well always helps middle schoolers pay more attention and they did a really great job of solving their first round of equations mostly on their own with gently pushing them in the right direction. We've only just dipped our toes in at this point, but we've got another week and a half to keep working before the next big summative.
That should be all the major points and I've still got some grading to tackle before I can leave, so I'm going to wrap it up here. As always, please reach out if you have any questions. I hope everyone has an amazing weekend!