Connected 3

CURRENT ASSIGNMENTS

2008-2009 will be the fourth year I will teach Connected 3. I am excited to be teaching this class, as it helps develop proportional reasoning and algebraic thinking, the gateways into higher level mathematics. I love the opportunity to teach these using a constructive learning focus, and hope that this will help students understand and retain mathematical knowledge easier and with more success.

Students will need a composition notebook at the beginning of the year (available from me for $0.50), to be called their Math Encyclopedia. In here, they will have notes and examples to help them with their ACE assignments and math’s mates. If your student is struggling, please direct them to first look in here!

We will start out the year with Moving Straight Ahead, a book designed to build an understanding of slope and linear relationships. Through this unit, students will be learning the same main concepts that they would be in a traditional algebra class: slope, linear equations, the four faces of a function, graphing, etc.

Next, we will spend time with Samples and Populations, which is investigating box and whisker plots as well as scatter plots for determining relationships in data.

The third unit of the semester is “Looking For Pythagoras,” a unit devoted to developing the Pythagorean theorem, the square root operation, slopes of parallel and perpendicular lines, as well as using the relationships found in these topics. Starting with Looking for Pythagoras, we will frequently have 2 books checked out to use. We will now have Thinking With Mathematical Models, practicing many of the ideas developed in Moving Straight Ahead.

We start the second semester with Clever Counting. This unit is about combinations, networks, and counting possibilities. We will continue to have Looking for Pythagoras and Thinking With Mathematical Models for this short unit.

Two big idea units of Connected 3 take most of the second semester: Say it With Symbols and a cumulative review of the math standards and concepts that students should be comfortable with. In the Say It With Symbols unit, students will learn about basic algebra concepts such as combining like terms, distributive property, and solving equations symbolically. Students who are successful in this unit will be well set-up to succeed next year in Algebra 1. Say It With Symbols will bridge Spring Break and the CSAP tests.

In the middle of Say it With Symbols, as mentioned above, we will review the year, as well as last year, to prepare for The CSAP state assessment. Similar triangles, probability, surface area, and volume will all be concepts that will be investigated here through a differentiated learning packet.

In April and May, we plan on investigating Kaleidoscopes, Hubcaps, and Mirrors, a geometry and transformation book. We also plan on investigating Frogs, Fleas, and Painted Cubes. This book extends our learning of linear relationships into quadratic (parabola), cubic, and exponential growth functions as students continue their algebraic development.