Week of December 14th

This is the week before Christmas break.  This week, we will continue making the connection between the model, the algebraic expression, the t-chart, and the graph.  In class, this is know as BBOA or the Building Blocks of Algebra.  Monday and Tuesday we will be given t-charts and be asked to find the expression that makes the t-chart.  Wednesday and Thursday we will be working on an activity where, if I give you one part of the BBOA you will give me the other four.  Friday, we will be looking at BBOA on the Graphing Calculator.

I wish all and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Bonus Problem of the Week

Copy the problem down, solve, and label your final answer.  Please turn your answer in before you leave for Christmas Break.

One of your friends is heading north for the Christmas holiday and the other friend is heading south. If their destinies are 1029 miles apart and one car is traveling at 45 miles per hour and the other car is traveling at 53 miles per hour. How many hours before the two cars pass each other?

Week of Nov. 9th

Last week we began a unit over ratios, unit rates, proportions, and percents.  This series of lessons are probably the most important and most useful lessons we will cover because students will use them in one form another for the rest of their lives.  We started week learning how to convert fractions to decimals.  We were assigned 41 Fraction to Decimal Equivalents to memorize.  We have been working on them for a week now and will continue to practice this week for a series of 5 minute quizzes.  Please make sure you are studying.  Click Here for a list of the equivalents we need to learn.

This week we will be:
Monday - Solve Proportions using cross multiplication
Tuesday - Write and Solve Proportions from Word Problems
Wednesday - Find Percent of a Number using Multiplication
Thursday - Calculate Sales Tax, Discount, and Tip
Friday - Complete a Hallway activity over Proportions

Bonus Question of the Week

In order to receive 20 Bonus points this week you need to copy the problem down, work the problem showing the work, and answer the problem with the correct label.

BestBuy is having a sale on TV's.  The TV you are going to buy is a 65" Samsung 4K Ultra HD LED TV.  It costs $2,299.99.  It is on sale for 30% off the retail price.  You must pay 8% sales tax on the sale price.  You also need help getting the TV home.  BestBuy will deliever your new TV to your home for an additional $69.99.  How much money will you have to pay to purchase the TV? (Remember: Money is rounded to the nearest hundredth.  Round each answer to the nearest cent before you make the next calculation.)

Week of Oct. 26th

It has been awhile since I have posted.  I apologize for that.  Over the last two weeks we have been studying equations.  We have learned to solve 1 and 2-step equations for an unknown.  Here's an example:

2x + 3 = 15

2x + 3 + (-3) = 15 + (-3)

2x = 12

 2x  =   12 

2          2

x = 6

I teach students that solving an equation is a process that you do over and over again.

Step 1:  Get rid of your addition or subtraction

How:  Add the opposite to both sides of the equation.

Step 2:  Get rid of your multiply and divide.

How:  You do the opposite to both sides of the equation.

We have now moved on to solving 1 and 2-step inequalities.  The major difference between an equation and an inequality is that an inequality can have multiple answers that will make the problem true.

Example:

2x + 3 > 15

2x + 3 + (-3) > 15 + (-3)

2x > 12

 2x  >   12 

2          2

x > 6

So, any value greater than 6 will make this problem true.

2(8) + 3 > 15

16 + 3 > 15

18 > 15

This week we will finishing solving inequalities, take a Common Assessment over equations and inequalities, and learn how to play Sumdog.

Remember, Friday is Parent / Teacher Conference Day.  There will be no school for students.  Monday is a Staff Development day so students actually have a 4 day weekend.  Enjoy.

Bonus Question of the Week:

Roger is having a picnic for 78 guests. He plans to serve each guest at least one hot dog. If each package, p, contains eight hot dogs, which inequality could be used to determine how many packages of hot dogs Roger will need to buy?

A.  p > 78                     C.  8 + p > 78

B.  8p > 78                   D.  78 - p > 8

Also, how many packages will he need to buy?

To receive Bonus points you must write the problem on a sheet of paper, solve the problem, and turn it in by Thursday, Oct. 29th.

Have a good week!

Week of Sept. 21st

Last week we began discussing mixed number operations.  We reviewed addition and subtraction of mixed numbers along with subtracting mixed numbers where you have to borrow.  We determined that there are six basic steps to add or subtract mixed numbers.

Step 1 - Find a common denominator.
Step 2 - Change your numerator to match (what you did to change the denominator you do the same thing to the numerator).
Step 3 - Add or subtract your numerators (Borrow if you need to).
Step 4 - Keep your new denominator.
Step 5 - Add or Subtract your whole parts
Step 6 - SIMPLIFY!!!!!

Example of Adding Mixed Numbers

Example of Subtracting Mixed Numbers with borrowing

This week we will focus on Multiplying and Dividing Mixed Numbers.  We will learn a few "Raps" to help us remember how to multiply and divide.

Bonus Question of the Week

To earn 10 Bonus Points for the week you need to copy the following problem on a sheet of paper.  Work the problem showing your work.  Circle your final answer with its correct label.  Turn it in to me by Thursday, Sept. 24th.

4/7 of the birthday cake was eaten on your birthday. The next day your dad ate 1/2 of what was left. You get to finish the cake, how much is left?

Week of Sept. 7th

This week we will continue our study of Integers.  Last week we reviewed how to add and subtract integers so this week we will multiply and divide integers.  We will end the week with Test 1-1 over all integers.

We need to remember for addition of integers you:
- Ask the question "Are my signs alike or different?"
If your signs are alike you add your numbers and keep the sign of the problem.

ex.  5 + 8 = 13      -13 + (-7) = -20

If your signs are different then you subtract your numbers and take the sign of the number with the greatest absolute value (farthest from 0).

ex.  -8 + 6 = -2        -12 + 18 = 6

If you have a subtraction problem you:
Step 1:  Keep the first number the same.
Step 2:  Change you subtraction sign to an addition sign.
Step 3:  Change you next number to its opposite.

ex.     12 - (-5) =                   -20 - (-8) =

          12 + 5 = 17                 -20 + 8 = -12

This week we will learn about multiply and divide integers.  The good thing is the rules are the same.

Step 1:  Multiply or divide the numbers like always.
Step 2:  Count your negative signs.
 - If there is an even number of negatives your answer is positive.
 - If there is an odd number of negatives your answer is negative.

ex.  4 x (-6) = -24          -3 x (-2) x 3 = 18

      24 / -8 = -3              -15 / -3 = 5


Bonus Question of the Week:

To earn 10 Bonus Points for the Week you need to copy the following problem on a sheet of paper.  Work the problem showing your work.  Provide me with your final answer with its correct label.

You owe $225. on your credit card. You make a $55. payment and then purchase $87 worth of clothes at Dillards. What is the integer that represents the balance owed on the credit card?

Week of Aug. 31st

Well, we made it through our first week of school.  All and all, it was a good week.  We now know the procedures at MPMS so now it is time to start school for real.  Here is our schedule for the week:

Monday - Introduce integers and discuss how to compare and order integers.  We will also learn about Absolute value.

Tuesday - Addition of Integers

Wednesday - Today, we will take a Pre-Test over computation with integers, fractions, and decimals.

Thursday - Subtraction of Integers

Friday - We will do a review activity over addition and subtraction of integers.

In my previous post I had a Bonus Question of the Week.  If you go back and read it I will allow you to turn it in by this Friday (Sept. 4th).  Following the directions to receive the bonus points.

Lets have a good week at MPMS.

Mr. Nash

Welcome to 7th Grade Pre-AP Math

I just wanted to say Welcome to Mance Park Middle School.  This year in math I guarantee you are going to learn something new.  It may not see so at first, but it will happen.  We will begin the year by ensuring you can do basic computation with integers, fractions, and decimals.  We will then apply those skills over and over and over again with algebraic concepts.  We will cover everything from basic algebra to trigonometry.  That may sound like a lot, and it is, but I know each and everyone of you can handle it if you do one thing:  STUDY!

I look forward to be your math teacher this year.

Jamie Nash
7th Grade Pre-AP Math
Mance Park Middle School


Bonus Question of the Week:

In Mr. Nash's math classes 40% of his 156 students have iPhones, 25% have a Samsung phone, 10% have some other brand, and the rest don't have a phone.  How many students have each type of phone or no phone at all?  Round each answer to the nearest whole person.

Instructions to receive 10 Bonus points:
Copy the problem to sheet of paper.  Solve the problem and show your work.  Write a complete sentence answering the question and turn it in with your name on it by Friday, August 28th.

New Websites

I have been having problems using the school website so I decided to move everything to Wix, a fress website host.  I created two new sites, a teacher page and a Washington DC trip page.  Here are the links:

Teacher page:  http://jnash03.wix.com/mpmspreapmath

DC Page:  http://jnash03.wix.com/mpmsdc

Week of April 27th

Well, the good thing about this week, STAAR is over for the 7th graders.  So now it is time to have some fun with math.  This week will begin a unit on right triangles.  We will start with the Pythagorean Theorem, then move on to special right triangles, and then to trig ratios.  It is going to be fun.  Most of the lessons will take two days, one day for the lesson and one day for the assignment.

If you would like to read up on a few of the topics here are some links.

- Pythagorean Theorem

- Special Right Triangles

- Trig Ratios


Bonus Question of the Week:

A baseball diamond is a square with sides of 90 feet. What is the shortest distance, to the nearest tenth of a foot, between first base and third base?

StraightAce.com

Today, in class we began something something new. Each student created an account on the StraightAce Supplemental Learning System.  The StraightAce eLearning system provides supplementary learning material for 6th, 7th and 8th grade math and ELA, along with brand-new 3rd, 4th and 5th grade content. With a comprehensive library of topics, StraightAce helps you manage homework assignments, practice quizzes, extra credit problems, and more!

Each of my students have access to 7th grade math, 8th grade math, and the State Test Prep material.  It is a great tool for some additional problem solving practice at school or at home.  The web address to access the material is

https://student.straightace.com

Here are some example questions.

Proportionality Review

Last week we began reviewing some topics that we have already covered but I feel we need another dose of before we take the 7th grade STAAR test on April 21st.  The first topic is proportionality.  This is one of the most helpful tools in mathematics.  We use proportions everywhere, in recipes, house plans, looking at student to professor ratios in colleges, baseball averages, etc.  We see proportions everywhere.

We began by reviewing how to determine if two ratios make a proportion.  If you find the cross products of the two ratios and they are equal your ratios make a proportion, if they don't they do not make a proportion.

ex.

Next, we looked at similar figures.  Similar figures have 4 characteristics that we must know:

1. They are the same shape,

2. They  are different sizes,

3. Their corresponding angles are congruent and,

4. Their corresponding sides are proportional.

With similar figures you have to be able to determine if 2 shapes are similar and if the shapes are similar find a missing part.

ex.

The third topic we discussed is the percent proportion.  You can use this proportion to solve almost every percent problem given.

  %   =   part  

100      total

There are 3 types of percent problems.  Problems where the part is missing, the total is missing, and the percent is missing.

Each one of these problems can be worked with the percent proportion.

The first problem sets up like this:

The second problem

The third problem

Week of March 23rd

I apologize for not posting in while, things have been a bit overwhelming lately.

Last week we began a unit over measures of central tendency and graph types.  For those wondering what measures of central tendency are they are mean, median, mode, and range.

Mean - average - find the sum of the numbers in the set and divide the sum by how many numbers are in the list.
Median - the middle value once the numbers are put in order.  If there are 2 numbers in the middle your median is the mean of those 2 values.
Mode - the number or numbers occurring the most.  A set of data can have 1, 2, or 3 modes.
Range - the difference in the largest and smallest data values in the set.

We have also discussed several ways of presenting data using graphs.
We have looked at:
- a frequency distribution table
- a line plot
- a stem and leaf plot
- a bar graph
- a histogram
- a scatter plot (Monday)

We have looked at how to create and read each graph type.

Wednesday, we will be having a test over the content mentioned above and review again volume and surface area.

Thursday, we will begin reviewing concepts we covered during the first semester to make them fresh on their minds before the STAAR test.  Our first round of testing will be March 30th and 31st with 7th grade Writing.  Math and Reading will be April 21st and 22nd.


Examples problems: (Bonus Questions - 3 points each - copy each question, work them, circle your final answer with its correct label if one is needed and turn them in by Friday, March 27th.)

1. Tyler walked a total of 4 kilometers by making 2 trips to school. How many trips will Tyler have to make in all to walk a total of 10 kilometers? Assume the relationship is directly proportional.

2. In a craft activity, students are making flowers using ribbon. Each student will make one flower and each flower requires 18 inches of ribbon. About how many meters of ribbon are needed for 32 students? Note that 1 meter equals about 1.09 yards.

A. 0.46
B. 14.68
C. 17.44
D. 526.69

3. Which coupon will save Gina more money on a toy rocket originally priced at $16?

Save 75% on any Space Race toy rocket

$10 off any Space Race toy rocket!

Week of March 2nd

I have to apologize, it has been a while since I have posted to this Blog.  February has been a busy month. We have spent 2 days taking a benchmark over writing, I have spent 4 days with students from Mance Park in Washington DC, among other things.  You can check out my Blog on our DC trip here if you are interested in that trip.  7th graders at Mance Park will have an opportunity to sign up for next years trip in May.

This week we will be finishing up surface area of rectangular and triangular prisms, cylinders, pyramids, and cones.  Some of these shapes have a formula that you can use, but I would rather them understand that to find surface area you just find the area of each face on the figure and add them together.  Here are some examples.

Example:     Rectangular Prism

Example:     Triangular Prism

Example:     Cylinder

Example:     Pyramid

Example:     Cone

Examples from Google Images.

Our schedule for this week will be:

Monday - Finish lesson from Friday and complete an assignment on Surface Area.

Tuesday - Test 5-1 Review - Topics:  Volume and Surface Area of Rectangular and Triangular Prisms, Cylinders, Pyramids, and Cones.

Wednesday - Math Benchmark Test

Thursday - Reading Benchmark Test

Friday - Test 5-1

March 9th - 13th - Spring Break

Bonus Question of the Week:

Copy the question, show you work, and turn it in by Friday, March 6th for 20 Bonus Points.

Part 1:

A company is deciding which box to use for their merchandise. The first box measures 8 inches by 6.25 inches by 10.5 inches. The second box measures 9 inches by 5.5 inches by 11.75 inches. Which box required more material to make?

Part 2:

If each box from the previous problem used material that cost $0.03 per square inch to make, how much does a company save by choosing to make fifty boxes of the smaller box in comparison to fifty boxes of the larger box?

Week of Feb. 9th

This week is not going to be a very fun week.  Monday we will be finishing our test from Friday. Tuesday and Wednesday students will be taking a writing benchmark test. After testing on Tuesday students will go to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd periods. Wednesday students will go to 4th, 5th, and 6th periods. During math class on Tuesday and Wednesday we will be playing Sumdog. After testing it will be a nice break. Thursday we will be looking at unit conversions (metric to metric, customary to customary, and metric to customary, customary to metric). Friday we will be taking our unit six common assessment over probability.

Remember, President's Day is Monday, Feb. 16th. This day is a student holiday.

Circumference and Area of Circles

Today we completed our lesson over circumference and area of circles. Circumference of a circle is the distance around the circle. To find circumference you multiple the diameter by pi or 3.14. Area of a circle is the space inside a circle. You find the area of the circle by multiplying pi by the radius squared or radius times radius.

Example:

Week of Feb. 2nd

Last week we began studying perimeter, circumference, and area.  We began by looking at the new 7th grade STAAR formula chart.  There have been some very interesting changes.  Students need to be able to use this page as a tool.  It can be used for measurement (area, volume, and surface area) and also ratio and proportion with unit conversions.

This week we will continue our lesson from Thursday over circumference and area of circles.  This seems to be a big topic this year so we will be hitting it hard.  Tuesday and Wednesday we will be looking at irregular or composite figures.  This is where you may have to find the area of several shapes and add them together.  Thursday we will work on a test review for a test over area on Friday.

Bonus Question of the week:
Copy the question, solve and turn it in by Friday, Feb. 6th.

A pizza of diameter 16 inches has an area large enough to serve 4 people. What is the diameter of a pizza with an area large enough to serve 12 people? Express your answer as a decimal to the nearest tenth.

New Chromebooks and the TLP Grant

Well, our class received some great news this last week.  Our class, and about 10 other classrooms in the district, were chosen to participate in the Technology Lending Program, a TEA grant that HISD is participating in.  This means we received 22 new Dell 11 Chromebooks to our classroom.

With the 5 we already had this gives us 27 Chromebooks to use in our classroom.  The program, not only allows for us to use the Chromebooks in the classroom, it allows us to check the Chromebooks out overnight or over the weekend to some students if they need a device to complete school work at home.  We also received 5 wifi hot spots for the Chromebooks so, if a student doesn't not have internet access at home, the student can connect the Chromebook to the internet to complete their work.  I am very excited about what this program could mean for our class.

Happy New Year

Well, 2015 has begun!  Some of you may think that you are not ready to come back to school yet.  My philosophy, if we don't come back from Christmas, we can't get to Spring Break and then ultimately, to Summer.

This week we will begin a new unit over probability.  We will begin with the basics, move on to experimental and theoretical probability, sample spaces and the fundamental counting principle, and independent and dependent events.  As we progress through this unit we will be maintaining a Vocabulary page to keep all the definitions straight.

Bonus Question of the Week

What is the probability of being dealt a Royal Flush in the game of poker?

In order to receive credit you must copy the question, show the work required to solve the problem, and provide the correct answer.  The question must be turned in by Friday, January 16th.