6th Grade

In 6th grade, students are working on writing and solving equations and inequalities algebraically. When solving, we are practicing being disciplined to show our work and prove our answers by keeping equations in balance, instead of just looking at the problem and “knowing” the answer. This will help us as equations and inequalities get increasingly difficult throughout upper school.

6th Grade:

Later grades:

7th Grade

Seventh graders are working to make sure that we know rules about adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing exponents with similar bases. We can also use rules for raising powers to powers and using negative exponents. There will be a quiz on this next week.

Using these rules and scientific notation, we were then able to work with really big and really small numbers. For example, if the national debt is nearly $18,000,000,000,000 and there are about 300,000,000 people in the United States (which we acknowledged were not the most accurate numbers), then how much would each person pay, if the debt was shared equally? Using scientific notation, we were able to find that the answer was $60,000 per person fairly easily.

8th Grade

Students in 8th grade have been doing operations with polynomials in preparation for our study of quadratics. While adding, subtracting, and multiplying them can seem intimidating, it is all about staying organized and using our procedures properly. Our practice is paying off as we have started using binomials to graph quadratics.

High School

Geometry has been focusing on circles since getting back from break. We can use circles, lines, angles and arcs as well as the theorems related to them to determine missing measures, when provided with a surprisingly small about of information. This week students measured angles, arcs, and lines in order to prove circle theorems, rather than simply assume them to be true. We will be demonstrating our learning about circles in an assessment next week.