Egg-sravagant Wednesday

6th: We were able to get a little more practice with Functions and transferring from a Function Rule to a Graph and visa versa. We will have a quiz on all of functions tomorrow. See the sites below for practice. Also don't forget to check the 6th and 7th grade textbook websites.

http://www.phschool.com/atschool/academy123/html/bbapplet_wl-problem-430985.html

http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/numbercruncher/

http://www.purplemath.com/modules/plane2.htm

http://www.funbrain.com/funbrain/cgi-bin/co.cgi?A1=s&A2=2

http://www.explorelearning.com/index.cfm?method=cResource.dspView&ResourceID=275

7th: Indirect Measurement is one of the most applicable ways to use similar figures in real life that I know of. Today in class we talked about how indirect measurement can be applied to find the height of tall objects or distances across water. Students did a class work assignment with practice problems. We will have a quiz on similar and congruent figures tomorrow. See sites below for practice. Also don't forget to check the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade textbook websites.

http://www.math.com/school/subject3/lessons/S3U3L2GL.html

http://www.yourteacher.com/free-video.php?id=1120

http://www.math.com/school/subject1/lessons/S1U2L4GL.html

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ac72449a6a6926534558

http://www.yourteacher.com/free-video.php?id=1121

http://www.yourteacher.com/free-video.php?id=1122

http://www.explorelearning.com/index.cfm?method=cResource.dspView&ResourceID=271

8th -2nd Block: So just how do you get an egg out of a graduated cylinder? Today the 8th grade class was able to do an enrichment activity using several different types of eggs to find volume using displacement. They were also able to approximate the volume of these eggs using the volume formula for a sphere. It was interesting! Some of your children aren't real sure what raw eggs had inside so they had to bust a few to find out. Tomorrow we will complete this egg-tra crazy unit by using geometric shapes and patterns to design eggs like those from the story Rechenka's Eggs. this technique can be seen by searching Pysanky Eggs online.

8th -4th Block: This class took the common assessment on 2D and 3D Geometry today in class. We will do make up work and test corrections in class tomorrow.

Spring Fever!

Ok, I'll admit I've got it and so do your children....believe me, I'm with them daily too :)

 

All classes have been given updated progress reports with missing work listed. All missing work must be turned in by Thursday as we are at the end of the 3rd quarter! Notebooks will also be collected on Thursday!   

 

6th: We have started the concept of functions in the 6th grade class. Students seem to be catching on well. Tonight for HW they have a practice sheet for plotting points on a coordinate plane. This is not a new concept, they learned to plot points in elementary school, however, they are not quite used to the positive and negative parts of this task. Only every other odd will be graded, but I encouraged them to do all the odds or the entire sheet if they felt like they were having difficulty with plotting these points. They were also assigned the odds only on the other side of the worksheet, only 3 more problems! We will have a quiz on Functions on Thursday!

7th: This week we have moved on with 2D figures to talk about congruent and similar figures. Students have a HW sheet tonight on finding missing parts of similar figures and a pizzazz sheet on congruence statements and corresponding parts. We will have a quiz on Similar and Congruent Figures and application of those on Thursday.

8th -2nd Block: We are doing an enrichment unit this week with the story book Rechenka's Eggs and the Volume and Surface Area of an Egg. Students don't forget your half dozen eggs tomorrow!

8th -4th Block:  Today in class we did one last review of 2 and 3D Geometry. We will have our big common assessment test tomorrow! Everyone should be studying!!!!!!!

 

 

Sleepy Monday

Just about every single one of my classes today were struggling to stay awake! I know the time changed this weekend - we need to hit those pillows a little earlier tonight.

 

6th: Inequalities were the topic for today. Inequalities are solved very similar to equations with only one little difference. If you multiply or divide by a negative number when solving, you must flip the inequality sign. Students have 10 questions copied from the board to complete for HW. We will talk about how to translate inequalities from English to Algebra tomorrow and then have a Quiz on All English to Algebra translations on Wednesday. We will review all of Integers, Expressions, Equations, and Inequalities on Thursday and have a TEST on Friday!

7th: Today we talked about properties of Quadrilaterals. Most of this information just needed to be refreshed from last year, but some of it was new. I hope that the 7th graders are taking good notes in this section on Geometry as they will need them to study with as the unit continues. No HW tonight but we will practice properties of quadrilaterals and triangles tomorrow, cover circles on Wednesday, practice area of all 2D's on Thursday and take a quiz on Friday!!

8th -2nd Block: Today in class we went over the HW from last Thursday and reviewed changing dimensions in 3D figures again. We will have a quiz on Volume, Surface Area, and the affects of changing dimensions in 3D tomorrow!

8th -4th Block: Today we continued to practice Volume and Surface Area of 3D figures. Students should do problems #13, 15 and 16 from the Surface Area sheet and #6-12 on the Volume sheet for HW.

CONGRATS BOB TEAM!!!

Congratulations to the Battle of the Books team! They beat Chestnut Grove for the first time in more than 5 years to gain the victory in the Stokes County BOB Competition this morning! Excellent Job gang!

Thursday (kinda like a Friday)

Today has been a little like a Friday since just about all of my students are either going to the Battle of the Books Competition or on the ACC field trip. Most students will not see me for classes tomorrow. 6th and 7th graders who are not going on trips will be staying with their teams, but of course class will go on!

6th: Today we played a nice game of chicken scratch with translating English to Algebra and solving equations. Students were then given a maze page to practice for HW.
7th: Class today we interrupted just a little by our intruder drill, however, we were able to get in some good practice on Line and Angle Relationships. Students should complete the back page puzzle sheets for HW.
8th - 2nd Block: We talked briefly about how to use the Volume formulas to predict how volume changes when dimensions are changed in solid figures. Students were then given 5 practice problems for volume patterns with Changing Dimensions and a puzzle sheet on finding volume of prisms. We were able to complete and go over #1-3 in class today. Students should complete the entire sheet and be ready to discuss #4-5 on Monday.
8th -4th Block: Students in this class desperately need to gain the confidence of working problems on their own. Today they were given the opportunity to do some volume and surface area problems alone before we reviewed them as a class. Many of these students were successful at this task and should be proud of themselves! We will continue practicing with Volume and Surface Area on Monday.

The News is Out.....

So, buy now I think everyone knows. My husband and I are indeed expecting another baby in early October. Here's a little update ticker that will change as the weeks go on.

Crazy Week!!!

This is going to be kind of a crazy week, sorry for not blogging on Monday. Yesterday we didn't have any real classes because of the writing test. Friday with the BOB competition and ACC field trip my classes will have another day with nothing new. Now for today....

 

6th: On monday we began going over how to translate from English to the language of Algebra. Students were given a homework sheet to practice these translations. I am very proud to say everyone had there HW today and we were able to go over it quickly in class. We then spent a few minutes reviewing the "turn around words" (than and from) and talking about how to translate two step equations. We will continue with english to algebra tranlations tomorrow adding the solving step for equations after they have been translated. 

7th: Today we began our last unit for the 7th grade year - Geometry! It's amazing that we are already at this point! We will cover both 2D and 3D geometry over the next two months and then move into EOG review, WOW! Today in class we discussed line and angle relationships and the students were expected to take quite a bit of notes. Although I really hate giving a lot of notes, this is a skill that everyone needs as they further education and even in real life and sometimes it's just the only way to introduce/teach a concept in math. Please ask your child to see thier notes and help me be sure they ARE taking them in a legible manner. They will need these notes to study with as our geometry unit goes on. We will continue with Line and Angle Relationships in class tomorrow and students will be given an opertunity to practice what they have learned. 

8th - 2nd Block: Students worked with snapcubes today to explore on their own how volume and surface area are effected by chaning one or more dimensions of a 3D figure. We will discuss this activity tomorrow and talk about how to use Algebra together with the volume formulas as a short cut for 3D changing dimensions problems.

8th - 4th Block: Today we learned that Mrs. Burford was definately not cut out to serve drinks! I better keep my day job! We used clear plastic 3D shapes and water to test the fact that Volume of a Pyramid or Cone is 1/3 the Volume of a Prism or Clylinder, but in the process I pretty much soaked the entire front of the room. I think the students were able to get the concept from the demonstration, even though I was a bit messy!  We also talked about surface area of pyramids. We will practice more with volume and surface area tomorrow. Please don't forget to still study those 2D formulas! Remember 3D figures are made up of 2D figures and we still need those area, perimeter, and circumference formulas. If you can do 2D area, you can do 3D volume and surface area!