Thanks to my small band of merry math students who came tonight for some extra group tutoring- we needed some more work on subracting integers- it was very worthwhile and, in my opinion, the way math should be taught all the time in small, talk it out discussion groups.
I believe that we have not paid enough attention to math skills and we are missing something with our math instruction. I have been very aware that as the students advance through the current education system the lack of confidence and mathematical skills (especially basic arithmetic) often sets students up for an uphill battle in junior and senior high. Consider that Math is still one of the core subjects that still 'streams' students, that in grade 10 students have to write a Math provincial exam and that the curve of new learning is probably the steepest of the subjects studied!
No New Homework
No new Reminders
Our day...
Langauge arts - a sequencing activity.
I asked students to read and separate two tangled factual stories and recreate the proper story with the proper facts in paragraph format. Both were full of scientific facts about the Space Shuttle and the other about weather satellites - so it wasn't quite as easy as it sounds.
band class
Math 7 pre-quiz- now that we have completed the finding circuference unit for geometry, I announced a quiz next Tuesday, May 14th (by that time we will have also learned the area formula) today gave a 6 question pre-quiz to see how much they could recall from the last couple of weeks- students seemed to do okay but I always wonder about recall limits!
Brief introduction to finding the area of a circle formula using the text p 280 Ch 8.3
Why the formula for finding the area of a circle is what it is.
The second half of the class we did some on-line geometry practice using the IXL, MathLinks 7 and Math for Morons websites.
Silent reading/literacy
Phys Ed a rousing game of bench ball for the whole class in the gym- everyone got some exercise and seemed to have some fun. Yeah!
Art- mosaic projects on-going but we needed to interrupt for a very special day that is coming up this weekend.
We looked out resources and a few ideas for simple and effective mother's day projects and I let the students decide what they would like to create (I am sorry in advance! But at this age level, if I made everyone create the same project it could be considered curbing creativity) then again when I saw what some chose to 'create', maybe in hindsight it would have been the safer thing. Ah, but is 'safer' the thing we should be pursuing in a creative venture. Good questions indeed...if I don't let students think for themselves and imagine, create and complete an idea then what is the point of the activity?
Dismissal bell sounded before I realized it was time for packing up! Were did the day go?
Math tutoring group 3:15-4:15pm
Have a nice evening
Mrs. J.
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