Saturday, January 31, 2015

Math: Week 20

MSM2 Blocks 1/2 & 7/8
SOLs Covered:  SOL 8.3 Proportional Reasoning; SOL 8.10 Pythagorean Theorem
Math Packet:  #14 Pythagorean Theorem
Upcoming Assessments:  CCPS Quiz #4 (Mon. 2/2/15); Geometry Test #1(Pyth. Th., Angle Rel., & Prop. of Quads) (Fri. 2/13/15)

7H Block 5/6
SOLs Covered:  SOL 8.10 Pythagorean Theorem
Math Packet:  #14 Pythagorean Theorem
Upcoming Assessments:  CCPS Quiz #4 (Mon. 2/2/15); Pythagorean Theorem Quiz (Thurs. 2/5/15)

Greetings to everyone!  I know I'm a day later than my usual Friday email, but it's been a busy week even with the snow day on Tuesday and the teacher workday on Friday.  With it being a shorter week than usual, I'm going to try to keep this on the shorter side (though I'm sure some of you have noticed I have a tendency to get a bit loquacious at this point.  The MSM2 students had their last test of the year on Monday (with some finishing on Wednesday as needed) and I think many of the points I made in class which I reiterated in last week's email seemed to finally hit home for quite a few of the kids since initial scores were much better overall this time.  Students still had the opportunity to do corrections for the test no matter what their score and students again seemed to pick up on their errors quicker on their own.  Please keep encouraging the kids (in all the classes, MSM2 and 7H) to keep taking their time and watching for those minor details!  The 7H students spent the whole week working on learning the Pythagorean theorem (and how to say Pythagorean! [puh-thag-uh-ree-uhn OR peye-thag-uh-ree-uhn]) while the MSM2 students were only given a mini lesson on the topic since it's a Math 8 SOL that's only introduced in the MSM2 curriculum.

The students in all the classes had their last opportunities to pull their grades up for the second term (and thus overall for the first semester).  The final extra credit projects were turned in and I must say I loved some of the extra information and creative details some of the students added to their projects.  I was happy so many students took advantage of the opportunity as well as with the number of students who took the time to "fix" some of their older grades (turning in missing/incomplete work and/or doing error analysis for old assessments), but I have to encourage all students to not put these opportunities off to the last minute.  Those students who take care of these chances early not only generally make better grades overall, they find themselves less stressed and frustrated over their work and grades.  Students and parents can both stay on top of grades and work by logging into StudentVUE/ParentVUE frequently as well as checking the class Google calendar to stay on top of planning work around future assignments.  Students already have their class Google calendar synced with their personal school calendar, but parents who would like me to add them to it need only ask (just reply with the email address you'd like me to add to the calendar).  I was able to update the calendars for all the classes with a tentative schedule for the rest of the school year.  Please not that slight changes in dates will likely be required depending on various things (future possible snow days, other school activities such as assemblies that could affect class time, a need for extra instructional time, etc.).  Parents, please encourage students to stay on top of these opportunities as soon as possible in the future.

This is probably as good a point as any to close things out for the semester.  The kids will be happy to know that I was able to get ahead on a few things with school work, which included calculating the amount of Lambie Points they'll get from the leftover Term 2 Liberty Points as well as getting to the store to stock up on some new goodies they can buy with those points.  I'll be ready for their requests on Monday (if we don't end up with another snow day!), so have those Lambie Points ready!

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