What are the Odds?

Following the Unit 6 Benchmark Post-test on Thursday, we will begin to explore probability.  
Friday will be a special "stations" day in class as students test events to see if they can determine how like it is that a special something will happen.  

How likely is YOUR success on the Unit 6 Benchmark Post-test? Pay attention in class and take some time at home this week to review for the test.  Then you won't be--

Calendar for April 21 through April 25

Monday: Skittles Lab 
Tuesday: Unit 6 Review: Independent and Partner Work
Wednesday: Unit 6 Review Correction and Review Game
Thursday: CELEBRATE! Unit 6 Benchmark Post-Test: Statistics and Data
Friday: Probability Stations with Partners

Looking Ahead:  Unit 7 Probability 

Who Does the Laundry at YOUR House?

At my house, Mr. Carlson and I both work at it, sometimes on Saturdays, sometimes during the week. Sorting for different colors and fabrics can get complicated. We ask ourselves, "Do we have enough for a dark load? Are there too many jeans? Will the towels dry before I have to dry the shirts?"

In math this week, we will be using  a different kind of bins as we revisit and extend our understanding of histograms.  So far we have discovered that, like a washing machine that shouldn't be overloaded, no ONE bin of a histogram can hold more than any of the others.  And sometimes, like the laundry problem, figuring out how big each bin should be can be very tricky!

During the past week, we analyzed the data we gathered about license plates in the Hoyt parking lot.  (The most common first digit is five.) We also took a CFA over box-and-whisker plots.  Seventh-graders did a great job on the assessment! Ninety-seven percent of the students (63/65) reached proficiency and many students completed the assessment with no errors, which meant lots of these showed up in my classroom on Friday.

Calendar for April 15 through April 19
Monday and Tuesday: What does the shape of a histogram tell us about the data?
Wednesday: Revisiting frequency tables
Thursday: Revisiting box-and-whisker plots/CFA 6.4
Friday: Relearning/retesting opportunity or Jeopardy

Looking Ahead:  Unit 6 Post-test next week!  Prepare for this great celebration of learning!

Box-and-Whiskers--Not Just for Kittens Anymore

Cute, right?  
But not really what we mean by box-and-whiskers in seventh grade math world.  

Last week we continued our study of data organization and analysis as we completed the Iowa Tests in math.  

We have been talking about random samples and practicing our skills at creating histograms.  This week, we will dig into another way to look at data, through a graph called a box-and-whiskers plot. 

According to the website, basic-mathematics.com, a box-and-whisker plot can be explained in this way: as the name suggests, the rectangle you see is called a box. And the reason we call the two lines extending from the edge of the box whiskers is simply because they look like whiskers or mustache of a cat.  The five points or dot that you see represents the following, starting from left to right

Lower extreme (end of the left whisker): the lowest or smallest value in a set of data 

Lower quartile or first quartile (left side of the box): the median of all data below the median

Median or second quartile(middle dot): the middle value of the set of data. If there are two values in the middle, the median is the average of the two values

Upper quartile or third quartile (right side of the box): the median of all data above the median

Upper extreme (end of the right whisker): The biggest value in the set.

If you want to find out more about these plots or your child needs more explanation, try the following video from Khan Academy: Khan Academy Box-and-Whiskers.

Also in the news this week, Ms. Lindsey Jones, an education student from Iowa State University will be working in our classroom until early may.  Lindsey is from Kansas and has tutored college students in college math classes.  Welcome, Ms. Jones!

Calendar for the week of April 8 through April 12

Monday: Iowa Test Computation Test and a LIVING box-and-whisker plot

Tuesday: Five Number Summaries

Wednesday: Comparing Histograms and Box Plots

Thursday: Practice with Box-and-whiskers, CFA 6.3

Friday: More Practice with Box-and-whiskers, retake CFA 5.4

Finally, a cartoon that says it all:

Unit 5 Data: What does it all MEAN?

This week we will begin our data and statistics unit in seventh grade math.  The essential questions that we will answer through our studies include the following:

How can predictions and decisions be made about a large population?
What is a measure of variation?
How is the shape of the data use to analyze data?

We will begin with the third question this week as we look closely at the results of the Unit 5 Post-test.

The follow illustration shows our achievement compared to all seventh-graders in the district.

Standard / Cluster	Hoyt Middle School 53 Students	District Average
MA.7.7.G.6 (7) Curriculum Resources (41)	62.64%	44.74%
MA.7.7.G.1 Curriculum Resources (16)	53.21%	50.97%
Questions	64.2%	53.8%
Overall Exam	64.2%	53.8%
MA.7.7.G.4 (7) Curriculum Resources (12)	64.72%	59.18%
MA.7.7.G.5 (7) Curriculum Resources (9)	76.23%	60.31%

Spring Break = Math Fun

If you're feeling bored this week, you might

want to check out this Ken-ken site. 

Login daily for free puzzles and fun! 

Kenken website:http://www.kenken.com/howto/solve

Have fun and be safe! 

See you on March 25!

Finding Pi

Did somebody say banana cream?

Unfortunately the pi we were looking for is the constant that describes the relationship between the circumference of a circle and its diameter (about 3.14).  Pi-seekers measured the circumference and diameter of several round objects and then expressed the relationship as the ratio, C/d. To our surprise, we calculated the ratio as a number close to pi--every time! This week we will continue our study of circles by calculating their areas.  We will also explore the volume of rectangular prisms (boxes) and the surface area of polyhedra.

Calendar for the week of March 4 through March 8

Monday: Finding Some More Pi

Tuesday: Calculating the Area of Circles

Wednesday: Polyhedra

Thursday: Exploring the Volume of Rectangular Prisms, CFA 5.4

Friday: More Practice with Volume, Retake CFA 5.4

Coming next week:

Monday: In class review for Unit 5 Post-test: Geometry

Tuesday: Correction of review and game

Wednesday: Unit 5 Post-test: Geometry

Thursday: Oz: the Great and Powerful, review games in blocks 1 and 5

Carpet vs. Fences

This week we move from lines and angles to the application of geometry through area and perimeter.  We will continue to visit angles, lines, and rays through our warm-ups and Pizzazz, but our work for the rest of this unit will be the kind of geometry we use in our "real" lives.

AREA

Today (Monday) I thought about fences and carpets and how they summarize what we need to think about when we think about perimeter (fences) or area (carpets). When I went to Menard's on Saturday with Mr. Carlson, we were looking at new carpet for our bedroom.  We had to know how many square feet (actually square yards) we needed.  It occurred to me that I use this skill all the time without really having to think about it.  I'm hoping that the practice we have this week will begin to provide that kind of facility to seventh-graders.

Sometimes seventh-graders have learned the formulas for area and perimeter without really understanding what they are doing.  We have been talking a LOT about what we are finding when we find area (the number of square units in something, even if that something is ROUND).

PERIMETER

This Week:

Monday: Review of area of triangles and parallelograms
Tuesday:  Area of irregular polygons
Wednesday:  Investigating surface area
Thursday: Practicing surface area and CFA 5.3
Friday:  Area of a circle (Lab) and relearn/retest/review