Ms. Bearse's Site

we’re trying something new!  We’re going for a brief body break partway through class to refocus.  It takes 5 minutes, but wakes us up.  Today we saw a stop sign…and verified that it is an octagon. 

We’re exploring diagonals of quadrilaterals in grade 9 and 10 right now.  In grade 9 we use rulers and protractors to see if the diagonals are rhe same length, bisect each other, and are perpendicular.  In grade 10 we use coordinate points to do the same thing, calculating with the distance, midpoint and slope formulae.

   
 
(These two really wanted this picture online)

Sometimes tests don’t go so well….there are a few reasons for that in Grade 9 math.

1. Inadequate preparation
2. Anxiety about the first test in high school
3. Time management during the test
4. Not checking work

We reflected on the results of the first test, and came up with some things we can change before the next test, during the next test, and aftr we’re done (but before handing it in)

  
We’ve reviewed our errors to see what types we tend to make, so we can focus on that type next test.

We’re motivated to make a change!

  
Some are working in groups to finish questions accurately and quickly.  There’s something for each of us to improve.

 We cut out quadrilaterals, found midpoints of each side, joined them and found that it makes a parallelogram in the middle….every single time!  
    
We tried the same activity with triangles.  The inner triangle is 1/4 the area of the big triangle.  It’s a scaled down version.

there’s an ultimate frisbee tournament today.  We took a break from indoor math to go watch the frisbee game, and do some math at the field. 

 we estimated the dimensions of a frisbee using objects of known size.  Since we don’t have rulers in our pockets, we used shoes which have their length in cm written inside.

We also estimated the perimeter of the fence around the field, we looked at the slopes of the stairs and bleachers, and compared the areas of the frisbee field with the scoring zones.  

  
What comes next?

   
If you look at all of the angles in a triangle, label them and then rip them apart, and put them together a little differently you can prove that the sum of the angles is 180 degrees.

  
 Period B was replaced today by an all candidates meeting.  We have a student vote on Thursday, and of course election day is Monday the 19th.  We got to ask the candidates running for MP questions on local and federal issues.

Today we put our knowledge into action.  The challenge was to create a square based prism 12 cm tall and a square based pyramid also 12cm tall.  The square bases could be any dimensions, but must be te same for the prism and pyramid.

planning is an important first step.

Next we measured and carefully cut out our pieces.

We used old filing folders that the school wanted recycled.

After a little tape and glue we had the solids formed.

We added the calculations for area and volume of each solid, and also the area and volume of the pair together if combined.