Carson had to complete the NWEA MAP Testing for Math today. He worked diligently the entire period. At one point I saw on his screen Quadratics. He's never learned those (with me) before, but I saw him using a great test-taking strategy (plugging in the answer choices). So I think/hope he's been doing well on it. He did not finish, so we will resume tomorrow.
Today we reviewed the properties: Commutative and Associative. I showed PJ how they work in general, then we used simple numbers to show examples. Next, I showed PJ the Distributive property. I gave him a few examples on his own to try. Last, we did an activity that had PJ matching the examples with the 3 properties. I told PJ that he was going to have a quiz on this tomorrow, so that we would do a review quiz today. We agreed that if PJ gets a 100% on the "practice Quiz" today on his own, then he doesn't have to take the quiz tomorrow (on his birthday). He took the quiz, but unfortunately he got a 90% on it. I complained about having to take a quiz on his birthday. I told him tomorrow I'd have a plan for him. How about we just take the quiz, and the rest of the class we can do something fun. He agreed and he was excited!
Today Joshua and I took notes on the graphs of logarithmic functions. We first reviewed the transformation types: Horizontal (left/right), Stretch/Shrink (Horizontal/Vertical), Reflections (x and y axis), and Vertical (up/down). We then started with the parent function of y=log2(x) and applied two transformations. We discussed how this would affect the domain, range, and asymptotes. Then we considered the natural log with a base e. We discussed how the properties are the same as logs with a base other than e. Then Joshua got up to the white board and practiced graphing a log function on his own. At the end, he wrote the end behavior. Josh is doing well with logs despite him saying how much he dislikes them.
