Week of May 5 - May 9

Happy Teacher Appreciation week!  I am very grateful for the teachers that I have had in my life and for the wonderful teachers that I work with here at the Academy for Academic Enhancement Gifted and Talented Middle School.  Be sure to thank your teachers this week for the hard work that they do and for the care that they have for each student.

This week, in Honors Math, we will begin the gargantuan task of writing our own math reference guide based on topics that we learned this year.  You will be able to select a partner from your homeroom to work with and you will choose your topic.  We will begin this week by formulating definitions using Frayer Models and will end with developing 3 examples with explanations.  You will be graded on your partner work using a rubric that you will receive Wednesday.

Also, in Pre-Algebra, we will learn more about slope.  In 7th grade, we learned about the rate of change and this week we will develop that concept further as the slope of a line.  We will classify slopes as positive, negative, zero slope, and undefined slope.  We will also determine the slope of the line from a graph.  If time permits, we will also determine the slope of a line from simply 2 points on the line.  If you would like to know more about slope, you can watch Slope Dude: 

Ac2E - IT Seminars

This week, students had the opportunity to attend 2 seminars during our Ac2E Interdisciplinary Thinking Seminars.  In my seminar, students learned more in-depth about the connections between mathematics and art.  Students learned more about how ratio and proportion affects art and enlargements.  Also, students learned about a branch of non-Euclidean geometry, topology and created hexaflexagons.

If you would like to learn more about math and art, you may visit the Virtual Math Museum.