Ms. Bearse's Site

Today grade 9s worked on remembering a lot about area and perimeter calculations for complex shapes.  

This particular question could be worked in a few ways.  Some saw a big rectangle with a square and triangle removed, while others broke it into rectangles and triangles.

We saw another approach involves a trapezoid (and our new favourite song…to the tune of Frère Jacques)

L’aire d’un trapèze, l’aire d’un trapèze

Base plus base, base plus base

Divisée par deux, divisée par deux

Fois hauteur, fois hauteur.

To calculate the perimeter we needed to figure out the missing side length, which caused many people to try to remember that triangle thing (a.k.a. Pythagorean theorem).

To help remind us of how it works we watched a video

We’re going home to measure TV screens tonight (which are all sold based on their diagonal length).  We’ll tabulate results tomorrow.

Good work again grade 9s.

Today Emma Jane came to talk to the grade 10s.  She talked about her role as adolescent care worker (ACW).  She’s here to help with issues at school or at home, with friends/family/mental health etc.  She has a service dog in training with her, so we also learned a bit about service dogs, and that we need to not interact with them when they have their vest on (because they are working and shouldn’t be distracted).

We talked about the progressive muscle relaxation (in the poster) and the stretches that go with each word.

We talked about strategies to reduce stress and anxiety including deep breathing, thought stopping, and mindfulness.  We also discussed keeping time for self care in our busy schedules so we don’t get overwhelmed!  

Nous allons prendre les photos de notre travail en classe pour nos portfolios de mathématiques ce semestre.  Nous allons apprendre comment utiliser Brightspace Portfolio (une application qui est reliée à D2L–un façon d’avoir un cours à l’internet).

Voici les étapes:

1.Télécharger l’application “brightspace portfolio” 

2.Si vous utilisez votre téléphone/ordinateur/ipad choisissez “my device”, si vous utilisez un ipad/ordinateur de quelqu’un d’autre/l’école, choisissez “shared device”.

3. Chaque classe a un QR code (notez bien que immersion/extended sont les cours différents selon notre application).  Utilisez le QR de notre classe.

4. Chaque individuelle a un QR code aussi.  Vous allez recevoir une carte avec votre QR code en classe.

5. Vous allez prendre les images de votre travail, et vous allez écrire un petit peu à propos des images.  Les vendredis, nous allons utiliser les images dans nos portfolios pour accompagner ce que nous écrivons.

6. D2L est un program utilisé par Limestone pour avoir les classes à l’internet.  Vous allez sur le site web de limestone, et en bas choisissez “minds online”.

7.Mettez votre login et mot-de-passe et ensuite vous allez voir un page avec les classes à droite.  Notre classe est MPM1D3/4.  Vous pouvez regarder là pour voir “content” et les autres choses.

8. Pour voir le portfolio, regarder en haut à la droite pour votre nom.  Selectionnez cela et vous allez voir un option pour portfolio.

9. Avec D2L des fois on va avoir les petits projets à faire (nous allons essayer de faire les courriels d’ici, et aussi nous allons remettre digitalement les projets).

Today we looked at problem solving.  After examining the tug of war, we used the 3 act “technology weigh in” task to practice our skills.

Here’s the technology weigh in video.  Here’s the answer video too.

We had some productive struggle as we worked through this one!

We’ll keep working on these problem solving skills this week.

We made squares today using squares!

We determined the perimeter and area of the squares, and then made graphs using desmos.  This is the perimeter graph.

We worked on vocabulary as well.  We can identify linear and non-linear, positive and negative, direct and partial, and strong and weak.

We also watched slope dude (so we will never again forget positive and negative)



Il y a 4 acrobats et 5 grandmères.  C’est égale!

Ici il y a un chien contre 2 grandmères et 1 acrobat.  C’est encore égale!

Quel côté gagnera maintenant?  Justifiez.

After our quiz grade 10s worked hard reviewing and remembering how to isolate variables and solve equations.  We’ll be doing lots of that in the coming weeks.

We are remembering specifically the distributive property, including working with negative numbers, combining like terms, and then using opposite operations on both sides to simplify.

Grade 9s did a quiz too today and then worked hard writing emails home.  This will be a regular occurrence over the term, as we reflect on our learning it’s nice to keep families in the loop!  Email writing is a great skill to develop.

We’ve done a lot in this short week.  That bodes well for what we will be able to accomplish over the term.  I’m proud of you all.

Today we are writing emails home to share what we have done this week, and share a little bit about our course.   Photos can be used from Mme Bearse’s website for this week, but you will be starting to take your own photos of your work over the next weeks for use in your portfolio.

To: parent/guardian email address

CC: bearser@limestone.on.ca (Mme Bearse’s email) –this will send Mme Bearse a copy of the email you send to your parent/guardian.

Subject: Grade 9 Math Weekly email

Feel free to elaborate a little and communicate this information in your own words.  Please include all of this information because it is important, and parents/guardians love hearing all about what you are doing in school.

“Dear ________________,

Our math class is writing weekly emails home to share a little bit about what we are learning, and how we are growing as students and mathematicians.  This week we have been solving different types of problems, and we’ve been doing most of that in groups. ”

*Here is where you should describe one of the problems you’ve solved.  Sky scrapers, number circling, crazy taxi.  You should include a photo that helps explain the problem (a picture is worth 1000 words–if you choose a good one!)

“We learned some of the elements of good group work: “*summarize the ones that are most meaningful to you.  *choose a photo to show good team work and explain how you know it is good team work.  “I know this picture shows good teamwork because….”

“Right now, I think that my teamwork strengths are_________________________, because__________________________.  I think that an area I can work on is ____________________________________________”

*think carefully about a group work goal you can make–goals should be specific, attainable, and measurable.

“Here’s some general information about our course.  Ms. Bearse has a website (bearse.wordpress.com) which shows some photos of our activities in class.  It also has a calendar that will show homework/important dates.  We will have weekly quizzes on Fridays.  For more information about tests etc. we can look at the course outline together” (*available online if you’ve lost it already)

“So far I’m feeling ________________________ about math class.  I’m excited about learning about ______________________________, and nervous about ________________________.”

“This weekend I’ll show you some multiplication strategies I’ve learned.”

*Sign off your email however you like, but include your name–it might seem super formal, but it will help Mme. Bearse know who sent the email if your address does not include your name.

We’ve started our first project.  We are doing an experiment and collecting data to later graph and discuss trends.

Our data collection takes 5 minutes of our time each day.  We are working with multiplication!

We have 100 mixed multiplication questions from 2-12.  We collected initial data yesterday, and then talked about some useful strategies or ways to represent multiplication.  We talked about how multiplying is repeated addition, or how it can be shown as an array, or a rectangle.

We talked about how if we can double something, and double it again it’s like multiplying the original by 4, or id we double again, like multiplying by 8.

It’s fun to see how many different ways we can attack a multiplication question, and different ways of representing our thinking.

We applied our strategies today and collected more data.  We are using the date as the independent variable, and collecting a few options for our dependent variables.  Some of us will graph how our results improve over time, how our mistakes decrease over time, and how we can get faster by using different strategies and practice.

The next thing we did today was to look at a 3 act math task.  We used a video of “crazy taxi” act 1 and wrote down what we noticed and wondered.

Then we watched a video with more information and a question attached.

We needed to determine how much a 30km ride would cost.

We used different strategies to show our thinking.  We practiced good group work, and excellent communication.

We watched the 3rd act to see the resolution.

We had an extension to see how far we could travel if we had 83 dollars.  

(In case you’re wondering…fuzzy socks are excellent white board erasers!)

We made good progress today with our problem solving and communication.  Great work grade 9s.

Today’s task in grade 9 was all about teamwork.  Our mission was to take turns and circle all the numbers from 1 to 100 in order.  

It’s a bit of a neat number page because if completed in groups of 4 we can notice something cool.

All the numbers for each person are grouped in a quadrant.

Knowing that, we tried again and were able to get through many more numbers within the set time.

We got faster due to practice, and using some strategies.  The third time we did the activity we had a minute to strategize as a group, to make a plan, to arrange ourselves, and see if our new ways worked better.

We gathered close to the paper either on the ground…

Or around one desk.

Many groups stood up

The level of focus was impressive on such a hot day!

Overall we noticed some strategies that helped a lot.  We brainstormed what the attributes of good teamwork are.  We classified them as what it looks like, what good teamwork sounds like, and what good teamwork feels like.

Our brainstormed list was compiled, and the overall list made by both grade 9 classes will be posted soon!

Well done again today grade 9s!