Mr. Becker's Web Site
7th Grade News
The seventh graders, after having their last polish on fractions, and after having used their fraction computation skills to solve equations, have moved on to the study of ratios and proportions. As they move into this very practical area of mathematics, they will apply their skills to similar figures, scale drawings, probability, percents, markup and discount.
The students will also concentrate on translations between fractions, decimals and percents.
8th Grade News
The eighth graders are just now in the midst of developing the very foundational algebraic skills of multiplying and factoring polynomials. They have learned to classify these polynomials with regard to their number of terms and degree also. Special cases of factoring and multiplying will be considered too, including trinomial squares and the difference of two squares. These skills will be called upon in our next chapter on quadratic functions as the students seek to identify the roots of parabolas and graph them too!
The students in the ACM class have been concentrating on chapter 10: Radical Expressions and Equations. They have taken a look at the requirements of Pythagorean triples (the side lengths of right triangles,) and are now working with simplifying and calculating with radicals. We will finish off the chapter by learning how to solve radical equations.
Excitement abounds!