eMath February 2019 Newsletter

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Happy mid-winter everyone! As I sit here in Red Hook, New York the days are getting longer as we head up the daylight curve. We aren’t at the inflection point yet (the Spring Equinox) but we’re getting there:

This month we bring you lots of good resources in our monthly add-ons. Let’s get right into those.

For Common Core Algebra I Add-Ons this month we bring you a mid-unit quiz and a new lesson. To begin, we created a progress quiz for Unit #6 (Exponents). The quiz covers all material from the first five lessons. We also have a new lesson for Unit #8 (Quadratic Functions and Their Algebra). We have created a lesson on the axis of symmetry formula for a parabola. The Standards are pretty specific about wanting kids to find turning points on parabolas by using completing the square. Still, what we all know is that -b/(2a) is a fast, reliable way of finding it that is likely easier for many students.

In Common Core Geometry Add-Ons this month we  have a new unit assessment and a new lesson. We bring you the Form B version of the Unit 7 Assessment (Similarity and Dilations). For our new lesson we created what we call a warm-up for Unit 8 (Right Triangle Trigonometry). We provide a lesson to help kids understand the various right triangle side length terms: opposite, adjacent, and hypotenuse. Use this lesson if your kids struggle identifying those sides when setting up trig ratios.

Our Common Core Algebra II Add-Ons and Algebra 2 with Trigonometry Add-Ons are very similar, so I’ll just summarize them here. For both courses we bring you two additional unit assessments. For Common Core Algebra II we have the Form C (third version) Unit Assessments for Unit 8 (Radicals and the Quadratic Formula) and Unit 9 (Complex Numbers). For Algebra 2 with Trigonometry we have the Form B Unit Assessments for Unit 8 (Trigonometry Algebra) and Unit 9 (Trigonometric Applications).

I’m going to keep it relatively short this month. Presidents’ Day Weekend is upon us and I’m looking forward to a (very) short vacation before getting right back to writing. Have a great rest of your February! Spring is coming.