During the past week, we have been completing some mini-units, as the week before we took and reviewed assessments and Fall Break is right around the corner. Sixth graders worked on reviewing 5th grade material in preparation for our next unit by playing Trashketball using IXL as well as working on conquering the world of “Mathtopia.” You can see below the paths that must be taken through various math worlds to complete the conquest. Each step on the path requires correctly solving 5 math problems that get progressively more difficult as one gets closer to the end of the path.

Algebra 1 students have been learning about features of linear, quadratic, absolute value, and exponential functions. They researched and presented their findings for each function family focusing on important features such as rate of change, domain, range, turning points, symmetry, maximums/minimums and increasing/decreasing.  Then we looked at what transformations of these functions look like in graph and table form. We ended the week looking at how to use symbols to transform a function. Below you can see two challenges that were attempted, trying to get the black function to line up with the colored ones by manipulating the function formula.

In Precalculus/Trigonometry, we spent time learning about exponential functions ensuring that we could identify them, write them given a graph or two distinct points, and use them to solve problems. We then discussed the compound interest formula and the continuous growth/decay formula and used them to solve problems like the ones below (where the people in the problems found unrealistic interest rates).