Revisiting Orders of Operations One More Time

Students learned that we need to follow directions completely when solving problems that involve orders of operations. To not do so will cause you to get some pretty funny results (like when you put your shoes and socks on!). We're getting better at computing with orders of operations.

Tonight's Homework: ACE 4 (5, 26-28, 33, and 45). Work on your PEMDAS poster.

More on Order of Operations

We reviewed the process for using order of operations today, as many students got confused on the part that requires that you multiply and divide from left to right. Many students were doing all of the multiplication, and then doing the division. Hopefully, this mistake will be corrected from now on. Students wishing to make a PEMDAS poster received paper today. We began an activity by writing out directions for how to put our shoes and socks on.

Tonight's Homework: ACE 4 (1, 2, 8-25, 36-43). If you are creating a PEMDAS poster, be sure to get started on it now!

An Introduction to Order of Operations

Vocabulary related to types of numbers (rational, irrational, integers, whole and counting) was discussed. We also talked about the commutative property, and how it works for addition and multiplication, but not for subtraction and division. This led us to a discussion about orders of operations.

Tonight's Homework: Page 63 (all problems). For extra credit, please make up a new, original sentence for orders of operations (PEMDAS) that you can illustrate. This poster will be due by Monday, October 8th.

Test over Integer Operations

Students took the test over integer operations today, and then attended the kick-off assembly for the magazine drive.

Tonight's Homework: None! Enjoy the weekend.

Subtracting Integers, Revisited

Students received their weekly grade slips today, as well results from last week's quiz. It was evident that most students were proficient at adding integers, but not nearly as proficient at subtracting them. With this in mind, we reviewed how to do this using a "same, change, change" method (also known as adding the opposite). Students seemed very confident that this will help them do a better job at subtracting integers on future assignments and quizzes.

Tonight's Homework: Get your weekly grade report signed and bring it back to class on Tuesday. Redo the 10 subtraction problems on your quiz, using the "same, change, change" method we learned in class. Then use pictures to show the answer to each of these problems.

How Good Are We At Adding and Subtracting Integers?

We finished the week by reviewing how to compute with integers. Students took a quiz over adding and subtracting integers.

Tonight's Homework: Give the course description and "Missed PreAlgebra" sheets to your parents and have them read them. The signed sheets of paper are due on Monday, September 24th. Also, please show your parent the note about the new phone number to call about attendance issues.

Patterns in Repeated Addition

We reviewed a bit more on how to subtract negative numbers, as a few students are still a bit shaky on this. Afterwards, we looked at patterns that exist in multiplication. We extended these patterns to include multiplying by negative numbers. Through analyzing the patterns, we concluded that there are a couple of basic rules that govern both multiplication and division of integers.

Tonight's Homework:
Be sure you know how to add and subtract integers, as there is a quiz over this tomorrow. Do all problems on page 30 of the Home Book.