March 13, 2006

Today we started our unit on ratios, percents and decimals. We will be incorporating what we have learned from Ch. 3 - 7 into this unit. We will start each class reviewing the necessary parts of past lessons and discussing how it is related to what we are beginning.

Students will need to spend some time memorizing new vocabulary as it is taught and reviewing their classroom notes. After any math lesson a great way for the parents to become involved is to have your child "teach" you what he/she learned that day. It is a great way to re-inforce their learning. Maybe you have completed a project or use this skill in your daily job and you could share that "real world" application with them. Every little bit helps.

MATH MID-TERMS WENT HOME TODAY! THEY MUST BE SIGNED AND RETURNED BY MARCH 15TH.

Basic Equations

I must say that I thought today would be more difficult than it was. I was impressed. We have spent weeks working on integers and then basic one-step equations. Today we practiced two-step equations and the students did a fantastic job.

A few wanted to know why they had to learn the steps, "when I can see that x is going to equal one." I whipped out a copy of the Algebra I book I borrowed for just such an occasion. We passed it around and talked about how some of them would be doing those problems in as little time as a year and a half and the rest within two and a half years.

I thinked they were shocked when they saw what math will be for them soon. I'm not sure they were scared, but they were much more receptive to "working out the steps." We have our basic equations test coming up on the 7th. We have a half day on the 8th, which we will use to do test corrections. The 9th and 10th will be reserved for our third benchmark test.