Today Ben and I began a new Chapter on exponents. I looked at the material in the textbook and realized its far too advanced for where Ben is at right now. During his MAPs test I realized he did not have the basic understandings for exponents. So instead of using the text book as a guide, we are going to take a step back and scaffold the content so he can gain a proper foundation. We started with the rule that when you are multiplying like bases, you add the exponents. I explained to him that 3^2*3^3 (that's 3 squared and 3 cubed) really means (3*3)(3*3*3) so we can see that we have 3^5. Instead of writing it out each time, we use the property that we can add the powers. Then I gave Ben a series of problems with increasing difficulty. He made a few mistakes as he worked, but was able to make corrections. He did well on this new concept to him.