Math: Week 9

MSM2
SOLs Covered:  SOL 8.2 Subsets of the Real Number System
Math Packet:  #7 The Real Number System
Upcoming Assessments:  CCPS Review Quiz #2 (Mon. 11/10); Combined Quiz (Real Numbers, Algebraic Verbal Translations, Review) (Fri. 11/14)

7H
SOLs Covered:  SOL 7.13a Algebraic Verbal Translations
Math Packet:  #8 Algebraic Verbal Translations
Upcoming Assessments:  CCPS Review Quiz #2 (Mon. 11/10); Solving Equations Quiz (Thurs. 11/13)

I must again apologize for sending/posting this so late.  I had every intention of doing so on Friday, but I was unable to do so before the site (the school's Synergy/ParentVUE site) was taken offline for maintenance.  By time it was back up again, I was already off beginning the celebrations of one of my dearest friend's wedding (I was a worker-bee for some of the festivities as well as being a guest since the mother of the bride is also a dear friend/second mother).  The wedding was spectacular, but I'm still completely exhausted, so I will keep everything to the bare-bones this week.

Students in all my classes had a couple last-minute chances to pull their grades up as high as possible.  The last test of the term was given in all classes on Tuesday (into Wednesday as needed) in addition to doing corrections on said test.  The electronic process has really sped up this opportunity, so kids are getting their results immediately and after just a few minutes more they can get the details (i.e. which questions were missed) from me via their grade book on StudentVUE.  A last minute opportunity for extra credit (in addition to the previously posted one, which closed Wednesday, 10/29) was given out on Thursday (10/30).  With the extra credit, there were actually a few students who were able to get over a 100A+ average; for report card purposes, the grades have to be manually changed to a 100 to avoid an error when sending grades, however students and parents do not need to fear that the hard work has gone to waste as their semester and yearly averages will still be calculated with the true score.

For the remainder of the week, the MSM2 students were introduced to the real number system, which they all seemed to take to like a duck to water.  They were actually kind of sad to hear that the topic will not appear on their SOL test this year since it is an 8th grade SOL (part of the MSM2 curriculum in CCPS).  The 7H students reviewed verbal translations of algebraic expressions/equations in preparation for the coming weeks' work on solving equations.  While translating from English to "Mathish" as I like to call it isn't a new topic for the 7H students, the problems do become more complex, which can make algebraic word problems even more difficult for some students.

I'm going to close things out here (I'm in need of a nap but still have to finish copying this week's papers), but I encourage students to use the extra days off (teacher work day today and parent/teacher conference day tomorrow) to review everything we covered during the first term.  The sites we've been using all term are a great way to do this, since most add at least a bit of fun in the form of games to the topics as well.