Week 38 - Last Week of School

Thanks for a great year!
Dear Parents, it has been an honor and pleasure serving and teaching your children this year.  I hope they are each prepared for their math class next year and beyond.


Textbooks
Students who did not return their textbooks last week must bring it to the library on their own time (before school, during lunch, or after school).  Please remember to do this so that you do not have to pay the lost book fine!

This Week
There is no homework this week!  On Tuesday, students will be creating a "Making Faces" worksheet and solution.  On Wednesday, they will be completing a worksheet that someone else made and trying to find the matching face.  On Thursday, I will be giving out the class awards and everyone will go home with a paper plate award and class signatures (yearbook style).  Please remember to bring a pen or pencil to school on Thursday, even though no back packs are allowed.

Week 37 - Textbook Returns

Textbook Returns
Our appointment with the library is on Thursday, May 24 for textbook returns.  However, students can start to bring them in any time this week.  I will store them in the classroom until Friday.  Our final exam is on Wednesday, so students may want to keep their books until then.

Field Trip
The beach trip is on Friday!   I'm looking forward to spending the day with the students at Seabright Beach in Santa Cruz.

Course for Next Year
Last Wednesday, the students took the Algebra readiness exam.  In order to move on to Algebra 1, students needed at least 80% correct or 36 out of 45.  Each student has already received their score verbally, but a letter will go home to all students with their score and placement for next year.  In case you are curious, 44 out of 82 (54%) students passed the exam.

Period	# Students  >= 80%	# Total  students	% Passed
1	19	29	66%
5	11	24	46%
6	14	29	48%

This Week
On Monday and Tuesday, we will be reviewing for the Pre-Algebra final exam.  This final exam will be counted in the gradebook.  The final exam will be on Wednesday.

Homework for the week is as follows:

Monday (5/22) - Final Exam Study Guide Part 1
Tuesday (5/23) - Final Exam Study Guide Part 2
Wednesday (5/24) - Bring your textbook back to class
Thursday (5/25) - Test corrections
Friday (5/26) - none

Week 36 - Stations & Readiness Test

Stations
We will continue working on review through the stations worksheets.  All 5 worksheets will be due on Friday.

Algebra Readiness Test
The Algebra Readiness test will be on Wednesday, May 16.  There are 45 questions on the test and students will have all 57 minutes of class time to work on it.  I will scan the tests during lunch so that results will be available immediately after school.  Students need to have a score of at least 80% (36 questions) in order to be eligible for Algebra 1 next year.  In addition, they need to have at least a B in Pre-Algebra.

Homework for the week
Each day (except for Wednesday), students are to finish the station worksheet from class that they did not finish.  The entire packet is due on Friday.

Week 35 - Algebra Readiness

For the remainder of the school year, we will be preparing for Algebra.  Some of the material will be new, some will be review, and some will build on extensions of what we have already learned.

This Week
This week, we will be factoring binomials by "un-distributing" the greatest common monomial.  Basically, it's using the distributive property in reverse.  For example, we will un-distribute 3x^2 from 12x^3 - 6x^2 to get 3x^2(4x - 2).  We will also review the concept of slope as a rate of change.

Stations
Beginning on Thursday, students will be working in small groups in stations - one station per day.  There are 5 topics: Problem Solving, Equations, Graphing, Factoring, and Slope.

A Look Ahead
Below is the schedule for the next three weeks of school:

Thursday (5/10) - Stations
Friday (5/11) - Stations

Monday (5/14) - Stations
Tuesday (5/15) - Stations
Wednesday (5/16) - Algebra Readiness Test (this is a change from before to align with when all other grade levels are testing in math)
Thursday (5/17) - Stations
Friday (5/18) - Career Day

Monday (5/21) - Pre-Algebra Cumulative Review
Tuesday (5/22) - Pre-Algebra Cumulative Review
Wednesday (5/23) - Pre-Algebra Final Exam
Thursday (5/24) - Test Results and Final Points
Friday (5/25) - 6th Grade Field Trip

Somewhere in here, we will return textbooks to the depository, but that date has not been confirmed yet.

Homework for this week is as follows:
Monday (5/7) - Factoring Worksheet ("Tadpoles")
Tuesday (5/8) - Factoring Worksheet ("Double Cross")
Wednesday (5/9) - Slope Worksheet
Thursday (5/10) - Stations Worksheet (different for each student)
Friday (5/11) - Stations Worksheet