Math – everyone’s favorite subject, right?  Well, we’re working on that.  One of my goals this second semester has been to help my students understand math enough that they are no longer afraid, or intimidated, by it.  Do you remember the days when you were afraid of decimals?  What type of numbers are those, anyways?  And letters!  Who puts letters in math equations?!   It took a little while, but we are no longer afraid of decimals, letters in our equations, or even square roots.  Graphing linear equations?  They’re almost a cake walk. 

We have been going hard this semester.  Working on building those foundational math skills, and the growth that I have seen in some of my students has been phenomenal.  We spent the month of March and half of April practicing graphing equations of lines, finding intercepts, slope, and solutions to systems of equations.  More recently we just finished up a chapter covering square roots – prepping their skills for next year’s quadratic equations.  Currently, we are covering some of the more complex concepts from our Linear Equations chapter, working to find solutions to systems algebraically.  I won’t lie, some of my favorite lessons.  Why?  Because Math is not like any other subject.  You can find the definitive answer.  You can prove your answer is correct.  Who needs a teacher when you can prove yourself right?!  Let’s just say I feel really useful when a student forgets to add the negative, and can’t figure out what went wrong. 

The remainder of our year will be spent reviewing those key concepts the students need to know to be successful next year as they move on and leave my nest.  We are working on the algebra pretty intensively and learning that there is more than one way to solve an equation.  Next up will be semester finals and summer break!