Today we applied the definitions of all the points of concurrency with various triangles to solve for missing side lengths or angle measures. We reviewed the definitions of centroid, orthocenter, incenter, and circumcenter. Andrew was able to use his graphic organizer to refer to his definitions. Andrew had to set up equations and solve.
We talked about the unresolved issues in the book and how we think they will be resolved as we get to the end. We read The Witch of Blackbird Pond and discussed the book.
Prior to our session, Quinn was permitted to take 5 minutes to look up a poster he would like to put up to decorate his room. He chose the soccer player Maradona. We got right to work after he made his choice. We worked on a reading passage entitled the Simple Physics of Soccer." the article's content vocabulary words included: apply; combination; determine; exert. The words proved a bit challenging to Quinn. He was asked about them before we started reading and then after reading the article,and Quinn was able to understand their meanings better after reading and exploring the words through some different activities. He then answered questions about the article. Quinn answered 6 out of 8 questions correctly and explanations were afforded him. Quinn also worked on exercises requiring him to choose the best word that fit in sentences, but the work was more challenging; a few strategies were shown to facilitate performance. After completing his work, Quinn asked if we could read a chapter in the novel. We read chapters 28 - 30 - guided reading with Quinn, as he did not want to read too much today. When queried, however, Quinn demonstrated good comprehension, listening, and inferential reasoning skills. He was excited, animated, and responsive today, and he is looking forward to getting his poster!
We began by reviewing Joshua's homework. He got a 100% on it! Then we worked on a Free Response problem together. He began the problem with the correct method but used 1 instead of -1 and his calculations weren't correct. I pointed it out and he made the mistake. Later in the class, Joshua said, "I seem to be getting all the PreCalculus stuff down, but the regular arithmetic I keep making mistakes with!" I asked him, "So since you're prone to do that, what can you do to make sure that doesn't happen?" He said, "I need to check myself before I wreck myself." LOL I told him he's right! He has to give himself the opportunity to check his work in hopes to catching any silly mistakes like that. We worked through the free response question and Joshua did quite well with it. We had time to practice multiple choice as well.
