The Educational Technology Clearing House has links to numerous interactive websites for students in all grade levels. This would be a great place to direct math students and parents for summer enrichment and/or remediation activities. If you’re sending an end-of-year letter home to parents, consider listing this resource.
Looking for a fun activity for your algebra students? Try Spaghetti Bridges! I have done this lesson and found it to be a success in the classroom. It is appropriate for middle and high school math students. The Sunshine State Standards addressed are: MA.8.S.3.1 (Select, organize and construct appropriate data displays, including box and whisker plots, scatter plots, and lines of best fit to convey information and make conjectures about possible relationships) and MA.912.A.3.11 (Write an equation of a line that models a data set and use the equation or the graph to make predictions. Describe the slope of the line in terms of the data, recognizing that the slope is the rate of change). The lesson plan includes teacher notes and student activity sheets, in addition to assessment questions. Especially helpful is the video clip and narrative showing real students in action on this lab. Your classes will enjoy collecting their own data and then interpreting the results.
Conic Sections
If you teach Algebra II, Analytic Geometry, or PreCalculus, you probably teach your students how to graph conic sections. This can be challenging, especially if you have to try and sketch the graphs on a chalkboard or white board. Under the heading “In The Math Class - Using FCIT Resources” on bottom of the Math Guide Home Page, you will find PowerPoint presentations that I’m sure you will find beneficial to you and your students. The lessons are ready to use and include teacher notes on the slides. You will find step-by-step instructions for graphing the conics, examples to work out, higher-order questions, and reviews. The ideal order in which to use the PowerPoint presentations is: Introduction, Parabolas, Circles, Ellipses, Hyperbolas. The illustrations and graphics are sure to help make this lesson a success in your class.
It’s that time of year… FCAT time! For those of us living in Florida, spring is approaching and with that comes the FCAT. Please take some time to review the reference sheets with your students. They are available here. In addition to the reference sheet, there’s an activity page you can have your students do that will help them become familiar with what is given on the sheet. This is a terrific activity to do the week before the FCAT as you ready your students for the test.