Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Accelerated Math 7
Geometry is one of the most practical topics we will cover in accelerated math 7. Today we finished our review of basic geometric shapes and techniques in calculating the area of each shape. I decided to review coordinate geometry at the same time by asking my students to graph four points and tell me how to calculate the area of the shape. For homework, they were assigned about 20 problems and asked to find the area for each geometric figure.

Accelerated Math 8
Some of the questions on the upcoming math regents exam will give the student a choice of methods to be used to solve a given problem. We have spent quite a bit of time on graphing linear equations. Now we will spend time doing the same problems algebraically. There are two primary methods we use to solve systems of equations algebraically; substitution and elimination. Both techniques let us eliminate one variable and reduce the problem to a much simpler version. I gave my students seven problems to do using each technique out of 14 problems available on a hand out. Several of my students did all the problems because "I really get this stuff". So I decided to award extra credit to anyone who did all the problems and not just the ones aside.