eMath February 2020 Newsletter

Happy February my math teacher friends. Hopefully you all had a long Presidents’ Day weekend. I know many in my part of the state have this entire week off from classes. We’ve been working diligently at eMATHinstruction on our new middle school courses and on the add-ons for the high school courses. We’ll talk more about middle school in a bit. For now, let’s get into those add-ons.

In our Common Core Algebra I Add-Ons this month we have three new resources to share. To begin, we bring you the Form D assessment for Unit 7 (Polynomials). We also have created the Unit 8 (Quadratic Functions) Exit Tickets. Finally, we bring you a new lesson in Unit 8 on the factored form of a polynomial. We plan to eventually add this lesson to the Next Generation version of Algebra I, which we will begin to finalize next year.

For Common Core Geometry Add-Ons this month we bring you two resources for Unit 7 and one for Unit 8. In Unit 7 we created an activity where students explore the centroid of a triangle. Strangely enough, the topic of the centroid is not addressed anywhere in the Common Core Standards (easy enough to search the term centroid). We discuss the centroid in Lesson 10 of this unit when we look at the medians of a triangle. But, in this activity students find the centroid, cut out the triangles, and see how the centroid becomes its balancing point (center of mass). We then bring you the Unit 7 (Similarity) Form C Assessment. Finally, we have the Unit 8 (Right Triangle Trigonometry) Exit Tickets.

In Common Core Algebra II Add-Ons this month we first bring you a quiz for Unit 7 (Transformations of Functions). We are trying to round out unit quizzes in all of our courses this year (no matter how short the unit). We also bring you the Unit 7 Form D assessment. Finally we also offer the Unit 8 (Radicals and the Quadratic Formula) Exit Tickets.

Our Algebra 2 with Trigonometry Add-Ons for the month begin with the Unit 7 (Trigonometric Functions) Form C Assessment. We also bring you the Unit 8 (Trigonometric Algebra) Exit Tickets. Finally, we also have a Unit 8 Quiz for after students have completed Lesson #3 of the unit.

Besides working on the add-ons, we’ve been very busy with our three new middle school courses, which are aligned to the Next Generation Mathematics Learning Standards. We’ve been getting fantastic feedback from teachers about the courses and we’ve integrated some of that feedback into the lessons for each course. We are now very close to having both the Math 6 and Math 7 books done in their first edition versions. Unlike our high school courses, we will only be offering our middle school workbooks in a single binding that is both spiral bound and three hole punched. The sheets also have a fine perforation so that students can rip pages out and then place them in a 3-ring binder. Here are a couple of pictures of our N-Gen Math™ 6 book:

If you look very hard, you can even see the fine perforation in that second picture. We’ve designed the books to be as light as possible with lower weight paper. We are always trying to balance that weight issue with the quality of the paper.

Work continues on the supplemental materials for these courses, like the videos, unit reviews, answer keys, and assessments. We plan to have the Teacher Plus Answer Keys and workbooks available for use by July 1, 2020. Until then, we can certainly provide quotes for school districts interested in these for next year.

Well, that’s about it for now. Time to get back to work. Have a great rest of February. May it end soon and may spring be upon us again!