Review online games for Grade 7 Math on Transformations, The Crash Reel

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/mathgames/geometry/shapeshoot/TranslateShapesShoot.htm

Here is another game.  Although it does not involve the Cartesian plane, and it aimed at  the Grade 4 level,  this game is fun and interactive and involves the key elements of this unit : translations, reflections, and rotations:
http://www.eduplace.com/kids/mw/swfs/robopacker_grade4.html

We will review the correct questions that Diego did on Thursday and then play these games, most likely, on Monday.  Of course, the links are available over the weekend to play.

While we are the midst of a creative bit of writing for the The Starfish Throwers documentary, there is another documentary I am hoping to show before the DVDs have to be returned to the organizers of the Hot Docs festival.  The film is called The Crash Reel.  Here is the trailer for it:

The Starfish Throwers assignment: Success Criteria, Mr. P's initial modeling , Level 3 + results for a Grade 7 quiz, a Probability experiment with a coin, Reflections and Translations

A more formal copy of the assignment related to The Starfish Throwers was handed out yesterday.

Based on the initial homework, handed out 2 days ago, where the students had to write jot notes relating to the Retell and Relate portion of the documentary.  Some of the students may have missed details relating to the movie.  I have suggested looking on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) to help reference or remember the main characters of the film:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3353428/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

This is what the Success Criteria chart for this assignment looks like:

In an attempt to model the writing for this assignment, I wrote some jot notes on the board for each of the sections of the assignment.  I realize I posted these before, but these photos are clearer.

Contains brief information on the Retell, but the Relarte is missing

The initial questions for the assignment

So, here is the first draft of my assignment:

You will note that my paragraph has not been written out.  I have jot notes that I will turn into sentences shortly.  

UPDATE:  as of 9:54 p.m.

I decided to create the rough draft of the paragraph, based on the jot notes I made earlier today.  There may be edits to it the work, but it is a first draft.

 

On a different note, here are the results of a Geometry mapping quiz:

The Grade 8s are also in the middle of a Probability unit.  I used one of the questions from their homework the other night for an experiment.  The idea involed flipping a coin three times and recording the results.  Theoretically, these results could happen:

Moving from left to right, this tree diagram illustrates the possible results when flipping a coin.  First it may he Heads or Tails.  Depending on that result, you flip again and may end up with Heads or Tails.  Depending on that result, you flip again and may end up with Heads or Tails.  Once this is done, you follow the "line of  possibilities" and will end up with three letters, which represent the possible outcomes.  This is Theoretical Probability

According to the statistics, out of the 8 outcomes, these are the percentages of possible results.  For example, 2H 1T means 2 heads and 1 tail.

In Grade 8 Math, the students need to understand the difference between Theoretical and Experimental Probability.  After I demonstrated the theory behind tossing the coin 3 times, the students then tossed the coin three times and repeated this for a total of 5 samples.  Really, the sample should be much larger than this, but I just wanted to give the students a sense of what the two different forms of Probability were like.

Drile's experiment

We will continue to follow this unit by trying to integrate the two forms of Probability.  

For Grade 7 Math, we have moved into Transformations, as I have mentioned before.  We did an exercise today and Diego managed to get all of the questions correct.  We will use it as a point of reference:

Jump Rope for Heart information, YouTube videos on Translations (for 7s)

Mr. Moye's annual fitness afternoon, with 100s of skipping ropes, is almost upon us.  The students received this information today:

details for our event at AMG

To give a visual overview of where we are going, I uploaded these 2 YouTube videos.

I am very impressed with the speed the Grade 7s have picked up on the exercise in Transformations.  

We looked at Reflections and Translations.  I gave the students the coordinates to plot the shapes on the grid and then they had to follow the instructions. 

In the case of the square, it moved over to the right 3 times (+3) and then moved down nine spaces (-9).

The triangle was reflected along the x axis.

Reflection and Translated square

Daijohn helping Mattai

A review of dice tossing, some more links for Probability games. and The Starfish Throwers documentary

I came across this link, while looking for one of the Probability games a student was playing:
Thanks, Mrs. Newman:

http://www.mrsnewman.net/probability.htm

The students usually like games relating to the game Jeopardy.  Here is a game that looks similar to this type of game we have played in the past.  This time, it is based on the Jeopardy model:

follow this link:  http://www.quia.com/cb/749664.html

Although the following picture looks a touch confusing, it is not meant to be.
It spells out the possible combinations of dice tosses.  There are 36 in total.  On the note that I wrote in pencil are the following sums in columns of the dice combinations.  For example, when you role a 1 on one die, you could role a 1 on the other die.  That would give you a combination of (1,1) and a total of 2.  If you follow the columns, across, you will see that the totals of the two numbers are equal to the rows found below.

The sum of 7 can be made 6 different ways.  I circled the possibilities in black.  Since there are 36 possible outcomes and 6 ways of rolling a 7, the probability can be calculate using the formula:

from: http://study.com/cimages/multimages/16/definition.png

So, we divided 6 by 36 to find the decimal answer and then converted it to a percentage.  We did the same for the theoretical probability of rolling a 12; the calculations are below, in purple. 

I posted the trailer for the The Starfish Throwers documentary that is part of this year's Hot Docs for Schools film festival.  As part of the viewing of the film, the students will be required to do some writing and reflecting.  While a more formal assignment will be handed out, the initial assignment, to be done in jot note form in their Language notebooks,  here is the initial assignment, to be done as part of the pre-writing process:

To kind of kick-start the students, I jotted some notes on the board.  It is meant to help the students understand what is expected of them.

HOMEWORK

- jot notes for documentary in Language notebook

Hot Dogs, Hot Docs, Internet Learning accountability

This will be third year in a row that the Senior Division will be hosting screenings of some exciting documentaries courtesy of the Hot Docs for Schools program.  One of the films will be the source of some writing we will be doing this week:

We began a Community Circle around the theme of:  what you are thankful for & how you would like to make a contribution to make the world a better place.  Here is a panoramic shot of the circle in action:

Onto Grade 8 Math.  Last week I had posted a link of games for the students to play in relation to the unit we are exploring on Probability.  The students then had to be responsible for writing up on 3 of those games and describing what they learned.  I will be using one of those games as a review of the work we have done so far in the unit.  Here is the example I did:

It is a modifiable spinner.  I designed it (you can change the number of spaces, but the colours can only be used once) to replicate a question that was done in the homework.

To be continued.

"How do you know..." quote courtesy of Drile

Grade 9 Family Night at Central Technical School

Here is some information regarding a wonderful opportunity for incoming families at CTS:

A Review of the Plane and moving into the 4 quadrants, Mr. P's Reading Response, photos from yesterday's Track Day, and a link for Probability games

just kidding

An image from homework takeup:

Here is a review game we will play that now looks at all 4 quadrants of the "map."

link to game:  http://mrnussbaum.com/stockshelves1/

I have wanted students to spend some more time working on the Reading Responses.  From my observations, they were being rushed through too quickly.  I posted a sample that I did and went through it, step by step.  It is due tomorrow, but I think I will allow it to be due on Monday in case any students want to make changes to it and not rush to complete it for tomorrow.

posted on the front board

article from one of the Toronto free newspapers

My response.  It may not be an A+, but it is at least a Level 3

Here are some shots of the 7s and 8s in action at yesterday's school meet.

As an introductory review for the Grade 8 unit on Probability, I am going to use the Internet Review chart to have the students be responsible for completing this once they have selected and played a variety of games involving Probability.

from Mrs. MacIntosh's website

here is the link to the page:  http://www.tvdsb.ca/webpages/cmacintosh/mathematics.cfm?subpage=193944

Grade 8 Probability Games, Weather, Mindsets, and The Giver quartet of novels

Why should the Grade 7s have all the fun?

We began to explore some of the avenues that are a part of Grade 7 Geometry.  Student volunteers came up to the board to plot the following points on the grid:

In the photo of David and Mattai, they are pictured playing a game in Quadrant 1.  It is sort of a Tic-Tac-Toe game.  We will eventually play a game where we plot items in all 4 quadrants.  This is where having knowledge, comfort, and understanding with Integers will make this easier.


Here are some Probability games the Grade 8s will play today to immerse them  in the fun of learning about Probability.

http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/bright_balloons/

 This game was played yesterday and needs to be concluded today.  It is a game using dice to test the differences between Theoretical and Experimental Probability.

http://mrnussbaum.com/probfair-play/

I am going to review some more games online and then check out some lessons from Promethean Planet (where the lessons sometimes from for the board I use in class) and move forward from here.

The following images are from the definition we looked at about what Probability is.  The value between 0 and 1.0 can be broken down into decimals, fractions, or percentages.  We used the figure of 0.8 or 80% in relation to the coming of rain yesterday (my Track practice was rained out!).

Here is the most recent weather for our area.  Note the P.O.P.. This refers to the Probability of Precipitation.

On another note, we came close to concluding our Community Circle exercise on the Mindsets, as outlined in the YouTube video by Carol Dweck.  Here is a panoramic shot of our circle discussion:

We have completed reading Gathering Blue in The Giver quartet.

We are now on the third book.