Weekly Math Point Tracker Explanation

Each week you will receive a "Weekly Math Point Tracker Sheet" which you will use to record the points you earn in math class each week.

You will earn 100 points each week:

• 40 points from mini quizzes (10 points per quiz, 4 quizzes a week, generally only one question relating to work done in the previous day).
• 10 points for the Practice Work you do, usually started in class and completed at home. 10 points for 2 hours of ALEX study (ALEX is a computer program that every student will have access to this year. One hour of work time will be provided for students during class, and the remaining hour will need to be completed outside of class (before/after school or at home).
• 20 points for Notes and Math Journal (Students will complete open-ended problems in math journals and take notes regularly).
• 20 points for Extension Options (Students will have a choice in how to earn these 20 points. Students can earn more than 20 points, but these extra points are only worth half of the original value. For example if a student does assignments worth a total of 30 extension points 20 of the points will go toward their extension grade and the remaining 10 points are halved, adding 5 extra credit points to their overall score, out of 100.) Extension options can be found by clicking here. I will print preview the available options at the beginning of each week and print out handouts if students sign up to have them printed.

Note taken on 8/31/10.

Note taken on 8/30/10.

Unit 4: Accentuate the Negative: Positive and Negative Thinking

The next unit in your child’s course of study in mathematics class this year is Accentuate the Negative: Positive and Negative Numbers. Although students have intuitively used operations on integers to make sense of some situations in their everyday world, this unit looks at formal ways to compute with these numbers.

UNIT GOALS

In this unit, the focus is on understanding and developing systematic ways to add, subtract, multiply, and divide positive and negative numbers. Students will develop algorithms for computations and will use the order of operations, the Commutative Property, and the Distributive Property to solve problems.

The Journey of Education

Definitions of Philosophy

• (originally) the pursuit of wisdom
• any personal belief about how to live or how to deal with a situation
• the rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics

Music and Life - Alan Watts

• Video
• Transcript (w/ reflection)

Reflection due Friday.

Math Extension Options Week 2

Once you have earned more than 20 points the extra credit points are only worth half their original value.

• "Clever Carl" math reading - read, discuss with family, 1 paragraph reflection explaining, what was most interesting to you about the article (10 pts.)
• Skills Practice: Tables and Graphs (10 pts.)
• Additional Practice: There are 6 problems, each problem is worth 5 points.
• Additional ALEKs time (1/2 hour = 5 pts. You can earn a maximum of 10 extension points from playing ALEKs each week.)
• Off the Wall Problem: "Bet I can Guess Your Color" (10 points)

Math Extension Options Week 1

This week you are free to earn up to 30 points through extension activities.

• "The Moving Planets" math reading - read, discuss with family, 1 paragraph reflection explaining, what was most interesting to you about the article (20 pts.)
• Off the Wall Problem: What's Your Index? (20 points)
• "A Surprising Square" Problem . . . In case you cannot read the text it says, "Why is the square of 111,111,111 so surprising? In other words, "what is surprising about multiplying 111,111,111 by 111,111,111?" (20 points)

Unit 6: Filling and Wrapping: Three Dimensional Measurement

The next unit in your child’s mathematics class this year is Filling and Wrapping: Three-Dimensional Measurement. Its focus is volume (filling) and surface area (wrapping) of objects, especially rectangular prisms, cylinders, cones, and spheres. In addition, students extend their understanding of similarity and scale factors to three-dimensional figures.

UNIT GOALS

Students develop strategies for measuring the surface area and volume. Their strategies are discussed and used to formulate rules for finding the surface area and volume of rectangular prisms and cylinders. They also investigate other solids—including cones and spheres—to develop volume relationships.

Ideas from previous units will be revisited and extended in this unit. For example, from the Stretching and Shrinking unit, the connection of how changing the scale of a box affects its surface area and volume will be studied.

Unit 7: What Do You Expect? Probability and Expected Value

The next unit in your child’s mathematics class this year is What Do You Expect?: Probability and Expected Value. This unit is about the concepts of probability and will help students understand common ideas that they read or hear about every day. They will explore long-range expectations in probability situations and learn how to make better predictions.

UNIT GOALS

Students will learn to find probabilities in two ways: by conducting trials and collecting experimental data, also by analyzing situations to determine theoretical probabilities. As they work, students will be using fractions, decimals, and percents to describe how likely events are.

Unit 8:Data Distributions: Describing Variability and Comparing Groups

The next unit in your child’s mathematics class this year is Data Distributions: Describing Variability and Comparing Groups. Students will learn to choose among a variety of representations to display distributions and will analyze, describe, and compare sets of data.

UNIT GOALS

Exploring statistics as a process of data investigation involves a set of four interrelated components (Graham, 1987).

• Posing the question: formulating the key question(s) to explore and deciding what data to collect to address the question(s);

• Collecting the data: deciding how to collect the data as well as actually collecting it;

• Analyzing the data: organizing, representing, summarizing, and describing the data and looking for patterns in the data; and

• Interpreting the results: predicting, comparing, and identifying relationships and using the results from the analyses to make decisions about the original question(s).

This dynamic process often involves moving back and forth among the four components.