What's Going On? February 29th-March 4th

Finishing Up our Triangles and Trigonometry Unit

This week we will be finishing up our triangles and trigonometry unit.  We will spend Monday of the week reviewing our non-right triangle solving tools: Law of Sines and Law of Cosines.  We will also learn about a new formula to find the area of a triangle using trigonometry.  On our second day of class for the week we will review for our summative and during our third class (either Wednesday or Thursday, depending on your class period), we will complete our summative assessment.  This summative will contain two learning targets: I can solve right triangles (3d) and I can solve for missing measurements (3c).  The first learning target will focus on Pythagorean Theorem, special right triangles and right triangle trigonometry.  The second learning target will focus on non-right triangle trigonometry.

If you would like some additional help preparing for the summative please ask!  I am available each day at 7am for extra help and welcome any and all questions!


Unit 7 Summative Retakes on Similarity

This is just a reminder that we are finishing up our eighth unit so that means that summative retakes for unit 7 must be completed BEFORE you complete your unit 8 summative.  Please arrange a time ASAP to take care of this if you are interested.  You will need to have your corrections and extra practice complete before you are retake eligible.


Circles

On our last day of class for the week,  we will begin our unit on circles.  We will talk about the different parts related to circles.  Some will be familiar: center, radius, diameter; some will be new: secant, tangent, chord.  We will also learn how to write the equation for a circle on the coordinate plane.

What's Going On? February 22-26th

More Fun with Trigonometry

We will start this week by working more with right triangle trig ratios and applying them to "real-life" situations.  In other words, we'll be working with right triangle trig word problems.  On our second day of class this week, we'll check in with a quick formative to make sure that we're on the right track.

Once we make sure that we have a good understanding of right triangle trig, we'll move on to non-right triangle trig.  We'll take a look at the Law of Sines and Law of Cosines that will allow us to solve for missing side and angle measurements in non-right triangles.

What's Going On? February 15-19th

Unit 7 Summative Assessment Retakes

Last week students took their unit 7 summative assessment on similarity.  If a student would like to complete a retake on one or more sections, the following must be completed before our unit 8 summative assessment on triangles and trigonometry:

• Complete all formative work (homework assignments and formative quizzes)
• Complete corrections on the original assessment
• Complete personalized extra practice from Mrs. Kamenar
• Take the Unit 7 Summative Assessment Retake

Please remember that the retake grade will be entered into Infinite Campus, even if the score is lower than the original assessment.  So, students please make sure that you are ready for the retake and ask lots of questions!

Unit 8: Triangles and Trigonometry

This week we will continue our study on right triangles and trigonometry.  At the end of last week we reviewed the Pythagorean Theorem.  This week we will continue our study of right triangles by taking a look at the relationships that exist within "special" right triangles.  There is a special relationship between the sides and angles of an isosceles right triangle as well as in a 30-60-90 triangle.  We will check in with a formal formative early in the week to make sure that we are on the right track for the unit.

During the second half of the week we will take a look at some right triangle trig ratios.  We will talk about relationships that exist between sides and angles (SOH CAH TOA) and we will start to set up some ratios in order to solve for missing side lengths.

A Note on Calculators

Students will need to make sure they have a scientific calculator (one with sin, cos, and tan buttons) to complete the unit.  If at all possible, I would suggest that students do not use an iPad calculator app as this is not permissible on standardized tests such as the ACT.  A TI-30+ would be a great calculator for this unit and can be purchased for about $10-15.  If students are serious about their math careers, a graphing calculator such as a TI-84+ might be a good investment but they are costly at $100 or more.  A TI-84+ is definitely NOT a requirement for the course, but students might find them handy to have and they are allowed on standardized tests such as the ACT.

What's Going On? February 8-12th

Finishing Up Our Similarity Unit

This week we will wrap up our unit on similarity.  We have talked about relationships between similar figures and shortcuts to prove that triangles are similar.  We have also talked about relationships that exist within triangles (right triangle similarity and proportionality in triangles).  At the end of last week we talked about how similarity applies on the coordinate plane with dilations.  We will wrap up the unit by talking about fractals.  We will draw some figures, like the one pictured at the right called the Sierpinski triangle.  Fractals use self-similarity in order to create a larger figure that is similar to the original.

As we review for our summative, students will break up into groups and become our "class experts" on a problem from the review.  The groups will then create a short video using the app "Explain Everything" to explain the process.  All of these videos will be housed on our BlackBoard class website to aid the class in preparing for our unit summative.

If you have any questions, please ask!  Let's have a strong start to 2nd semester!