What's Going On? October 31st through November 4th

Unit 4: Triangle Congruence

Last week, students studied properties that exist within triangles.  We talked about isosceles triangles, midsegments of triangles, the triangle inequality theorem and the side-angle theorem.

This week students will continue our study of triangle congruence.  On the first day of the week, students will participate in a review of important concepts and complete a formative assessment to make sure that we're on the right track with our knowledge and to clear up any misconceptions.

Later on in the week, students will explore triangle congruence shortcuts.  

In order to say that we know that two polygons are congruent, we need to be able to say that all of their corresponding sides are congruent and all of their corresponding angles are congruent.  However, some shortcuts do exist if we are dealing with triangles.

During class this week, students will "discover" some triangle congruence shortcuts.  We will then be able to apply this knowledge to formally prove that two triangles are congruent using a two-column proof.  

What's Going On? October 24th through October 26th

Unit 4: Triangle Congruence

During this short week, Honors Geometry students will begin our fourth unit of study on triangle congruence.  During our three days of class, we will talk about the properties of isosceles triangles, the midsegments of triangles, and triangle inequality.  Students will learn about different properties associated with triangles and will learn how to solve for missing measurements.  This will lay the groundwork for our work on proving that we know two triangles are congruent in the following week.

What's Going On? October 17th through October 21st

Finishing Up Unit 3: Properties of Parallel Lines

This week students will be finishing up our study on the properties of parallel lines.  We will spend Monday's class reviewing how to write the equation of a line and two column proofs.  We will be working with the Google Slides app during class, so please make sure that this is downloaded from the app store or from "Self Service".

On Tuesday, we will take a look at spherical geometry.  We have been talking about Euclidean geometry so far in class (and will continue this throughout the rest of the year), but on Tuesday we will take a moment to talk about spherical geometry.  Students: prepare to have your MINDS BLOWN!

We know that in Euclidean Geometry, parallel lines are lines in the same plane that will never intersect.  When we take a look at spherical geometry, ALL LINES INTERSECT!  

For our study of spherical geometry, we will be drawing on balloons.  This makes it much easier to visualized 3D concepts.  

We will finish up our week with a review and our unit 3 summative assessment.  This assessment will cover two major targets: properties of parallel lines and writing linear equations.  

A Note About Unit 2 Summative Retakes

This week is the last week students can take advantage of a unit 2 summative retake (by Thursday).  In order to be eligible for a test retake, students must have completed all formative work (check Infinite Campus), must make corrections on the original assessment, and complete the extra practice.  Students must notify Mrs. Kamenar about when they would like to come in to make corrections (before school, during lunch or after school on Tuesday or Thursday in Homework Club), e-mail Mrs. Kamenar about which section(s) of the test they would like to retake, and make an appointment for the retake.  Please DO NOT try to accomplish all of these tasks in one day!

What's Going On? October 10th through October 14th

Parallel Lines

Last week we started our third unit on parallel lines.  We talked about the special relationships that exist between angles that are created by two parallel lines cut by a transversal.  

This week we will start off the week by reviewing the vocabulary learned last week by completing a set of station activities.  Students will engage with the vocabulary and identify relationships between angles.  Later on in the week we will talk about how we can prove that lines are parallel based on angle relationships.  We will apply our knowledge while we complete two-column proofs.

Students should be prepared to see a couple of formative check-ins this week so that we can make sure that we clear up any misconceptions before our next summative.

What's Going On? October 3rd through 7th

Monday: Unit 1 Summative Assessment Retakes are Due!

Students who are interested in retaking the unit 1 summative have until Monday to do so.  Please remember that students must follow all steps of the process:

1. All formative work must be complete for the unit (please verify this in Infinite Campus)
2. Corrections must be made on the original assessment
3. Students should e-mail Mrs. Kamenar to request extra practice for the section(s) they would like to retake (kkamenar@waukesha.k12.wi.us)
4. Students must complete the retake before our next summative (Due by MONDAY 10/3)

If you have not made arrangements with me for a time to complete your retake, please do so ASAP!

Finishing Up Unit 2: Reasoning and Proof

For Monday's class, students will need to bring in their completed unit 2 practice test.  We will make sure that we clear up questions that students have before our summative assessment on Tuesday.  Once we have answered questions, students will play a review game called "Castle Attack". Each team will start with 5 castles. Students will work in teams to solve problems like they will see on Tuesday's summative.  If a team gets a question correct, they can choose to either add two castles to their own team or remove two castles from other teams.  (There is a maximum of 5 castles per team).  The team at the end with the most castles wins!

During Tuesday's class, students will complete our second summative assessment.  For this assessment, we will cover two learning targets:

• 1b: I can use the basic language of logic
• 1d: I can prove theorems about lines and angles.

Students will demonstrate their understanding of logic statements and indirect proof in the first section of the test.  On the second section, students will demonstrate their knowledge of basic algebraic and geometric two column proofs.

MAP Testing

On Wednesday of this week, freshmen will complete the MAP test.  We will meet in the West Lecture Hall in the junior hallway to complete this assessment.  Students will need to have the NWEA MAP app installed on their iPads before Wednesday's class.






Unit 3: Parallel Lines

On the last day of class for the week, we will start our study of unit 3.  In this unit, students will examine patterns that are formed when two parallel lines are crossed by a transversal.  Students will then apply their knowledge of these relationships in order to prove a relationship between two angles.

What's Going On? September 26th through 30th

Unit 1 Summative Retake Policy

This past week students took our first summative assessment for our first unit on the Basics of Geometry.  I would like to take a few moments to remind everyone of some of our policies regarding grades and retakes.  Students who are interested in retaking one or more sections of the assessment must complete the following steps:

• Make sure that all formative work is complete for the unit.  This includes all homework assignments and formative check-ins.  Students can check out Infinite Campus to check the status of work completion for the unit.
• Students should make an appointment to complete their corrections on the original assessment.  These corrections can be completed before school, after school, or during lunch.  Please contact me to arrange a time.
• Students should send me an e-mail requesting extra practice for the section(s) they would like to retake.  For example:

                 Mrs. Kamenar,

                 This is Sam Smith from your 1st period Honors Geometry class.  I would like to retake the                    1a section from our Unit 1 Summative.  Could you please send me some extra practice?

                 Sincerely,
                         Sam Smith

• Students should make arrangements to complete the retake of the assessment before our next summative assessment (Unit 2 assessment is scheduled for Tuesday, October 4th).
• Please note that the retake score will be entered into Infinite Campus, even if the score is lower than the original assessment.
• Also note that a score of "IE" in two or more learning targets will result in a failing grade for the course.  Students who scored an "IE" on our last assessment should start preparing for a retake. 

MAP Testing

Freshman students enrolled in Honors Geometry will be completing our math MAP test soon in order to chart student growth in mathematical understanding throughout the year.  Students will need to have the "NWEA MAP" app installed on their iPads in order to complete the assessment.  I will start checking iPads this week to make sure that all students have the app installed before our MAP testing window opens on October 4th.

Unit 2: Reasoning and Proof

This week we will continue our unit on the introduction to reasoning and proof.  Last week students were introduced to logic statements and we started to apply proof practices to solving Algebra problems.  This week we will continue to work with logical reasoning statements in order to formulate our logical reasoning in Geometry.  Students will be able to walk through a proof problem step-by-step and justify their reasoning for being able to perform each step.

What's Going On? September 19th through September 23rd

Our First Summative Assessment!

This week Honors Geometry students will take our unit 1 summative assessment on the Basics of Geometry.  In order to prepare for this assessments, students should make sure that they Unit 1 Practice Test is complete by Monday's class.  If students have questions about the review, they can check out the answer key posted on BlackBoard.  Additionally, students created a class library of videos walking through each problem.  So, if a student is stuck on problem #19, they can view the problem #19 video.  The video links were posted on BlackBoard and are also accessible by clicking here.  During class on Monday we will go over questions and play a review game.  Our summative assessment will take place on Tuesday.  Students need to make sure that they have the necessary tools for the summative, including a compass, straight edge (ruler), and a calculator.


Unit 2: Reasoning and Proof

After our summative assessment, we will move on to our second unit: Reasoning and Proof.  During the last two class periods of the week, students will work with logical statements.  Students will work on writing logic statements and will examine if the statement is true or not.

For example, we might look at a conditional statement such as

"If I just ate a whole pint of ice cream, then I'm not hungry".  

Students will find that this original statement is true.  Students can also write a converse of the statement where the first and second part of the statement switch places.  The converse of this original statement would be "If I'm not hungry, then I just ate a whole pint of ice cream."  Students can list a whole bunch of other reasoning why someone is not hungry rather than just eating a pint of ice cream, so this statement would be considered false.

We will use this idea on our examination of logic statements to evaluate geometric definitions.  For example: 

"If a figure is a square, then it has four equal angles."

Students will learn how to examine statements like a mathematician in order to form logical arguments.  This unit will lay the foundation for our study of proof that will continue throughout the first semester.