A Tale of Two Cities (10/1)

The 8th Grade did another great job working their way through the Unit Review for Pythagorean Theorem and Number Sense with Radicals. I am happy with their progress through using the Pythagorean Theorem to find the distance between two points on a coordinate plane. I enjoyed walking around the room hearing the groups talk math. I have learned that my group after lunch needs that discussion to further their learning. So, I am making that a point to include that group discussion time in every class. The tough part is going to be getting me to stop talking early enough. I am excited to see how they do on their end of unit assessment on Friday.

We are wrapping up our discussion on Decimal Computation in 6th Grade. We did a little more work on dividing decimals and completed our review for chapter 1. We will do a quick formative assessment tomorrow in class to determine if we are ready for our end of unit exam Friday. I am happy with the progress we have shown, but may still look into timed multiplication drills for some of our students. I think we would be better if we were a little more solid with our math facts.

We stalled a little today in 7th grade. We are having a tough time remembering the steps when working with fractions. We are still getting confused on when we need to find a common denominator (addition and subtraction) and when we do not (multiplication and division). Unless they do a great job convincing me tomorrow, that end of unit test planned for Friday will be rescheduled. I can not proceed with an exam that I know only 1/3 of the class is handling the material. Not a good situation for anyone. I will need to brainstorm some ideas to get them some extra practice.

Again, I was happy with the group work for all of the classes. For the most part, the conversations are  centered around what we are working on. If not, they are quickly redirected. Also, I like that time to be able to meet up with the ones I know are struggling to reinforce some skill. However, I make sure I meet up with the students that show evidence of mastery already and provide them with a little more advanced work. Working hard to meet everyone at their level...