Monday, May 26, 2014

A late evening post.

This was a photo I showed to the Grade 7s as I was trying to explain the concept of negative numbers. In the next unit, the students will be encountering this in Geometry as they learn about the Cartesian Coordinates.

image taken from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Intermediate_Algebra/The_Coordinate_%28Cartesian%29_Plane

Here is the website I want the 7s to start looking at:

http://www.mathsisfun.com/data/cartesian-coordinates.html

This is a must read!  Before playing any games, this lesson is crucial to review.

To begin with, we will look and play this game:

http://resources.oswego.org/games/BillyBug/bugcoord.html

There are scores of  games for you to play.  Another version of the Billy Bug game may be found here:

http://resources.oswego.org/games/BillyBug2/bug2.html

As for the Grade 8s, they will be picking up on something the Grade 7s have been doing:  Algebra.  I am guessing they may be able to take the concepts a little further, given their skill level. 

Rather that cutting and pasting all of the valuable posts again, I suggest the 8s look at the following date, on this blog, for guidance:

http://rumblingsfrom52.blogspot.ca/2014/05/tuesday-may-20-2014.html

The initial links of games will be most beneficial to your introduction to this topic.  I strongly encourage looking at the math.com site on Equations.  This will be most helpful for you.

One other exercise we did today involved the filling out of a blank Learning Skills page for the upcoming Report Card.  This provides the students with the opportunity to be reflective on their learning and think about "next steps" that they can work towards to improve in certain areas.  I filled one in, to provide the students with some prompting.

 I sensed that there was something else I wanted to post.  It is a photo of the Homework Board.  Remember, the students see this everyday and this is a means for them to track the work that is happening in class.  For a number of students, this chart is having little impact on how they keep track of their work.  Please ask your son or  daughter about this chart and how they are managing their homework.  An agenda is a wise investment!