Mathemagician’s Mission

Please use the following directions to login to your Math Moodle Classroom.Follow these directions for Moodle. Email me at anytime if you have difficulties logging in or navigating through the process. Complete all of this by Monday at 9:00 pm.

1. Log onto Moodle HERE.

2. Click on Grade 8 and then click on the Class Title for your class.

If this is your first time on Moodle at SAS, click the Create New Account link below the username and password box on the right side of the screen. (If you have logged onto Moodle before, sign in and proceed to step #7 and enter the enrollment key)

3. For your username, your Moodle username has been changed to your Novell/blog userhame. For example, amanda01pd2019.

4. Type in a password that you will remember.

5. Type in your personal email address twice, your first name, last name, city, country and click Create My New Account.

6. Go to your email account and search for an email from Don Miron that has just been sent to you. Open the email and click on the blue link embedded in the email. This will open us your Moodle account page telling you that your account has been confirmed.

7. Type in the Enrollment Key which is math.

Congratulations! You are now part of our math virtual classroom!!!

If you have problems enrolling please contact Mrs. Saich or Ms. DeCardy!

Calling all MS Mathletes- it’s time to sharpen your minds and pencils. Math Matters, the Pudong MS Math Club, will meet in Mrs. Saich’s room, MS 307, Tuesdays from 3:00-4:15 starting Tuesday, Dec. 9. All Middle School students are invited to join. Students will have the opportunity to expand their problem solving and skill levels through independent and group work. We will work on MathCounts activities to prepare for our building competition during the third quarter. The top 4 students’ names are forwarded to the US State Department, Office of Overseas Schools. The four highest scoring students from all qualifying international schools will then make up the Department of State Team . Students will also compete in monthly ASMA (American Scholastic Mathematics Association) competitions. Weekly attendance is strongly encouraged.

Geometry students will be taking their Unit 4, Triangle Properties and Congruence test on Tuesday, Nov. 25. There is a review powerpoint available on the Geometry page.

Algebra students will be taking their Unit 5, Functions and Graphs Test on Wednesday and Thursday, Nov. 26/27. There is a review questions powerpoint available on the Algebra A/B Day pages. Next week we will be pretesting Unit 6, Linear Equations and Their Forms.

Algebra students and Geometry students have updated second quarter progress reports posted on Edline.  Please access your account to check your achievement so far this quarter.  Remember, we still have 5 weeks to go before the quarter ends.  Algebra and Geometry students both have unit tests next week, and progress reports will be updated again the first week of December.  If you have any questions regarding your current progress, please email or see me.

The Middle School blog had an excellent post about the Giving Tree.  Please send in new articles for the children we are sponsoring by next Friday, November 28.  We are in desperate need of clothing for these children - please donate to the children of our host country.  Send items to your child's advisor.  My advisory class is sponsoring the following children:

YiMan He
Boy
Age 10
Height: 124cm
Weight: 22kg
Shoe Size: 22cm

XianAn Wang
Boy
Age 8
Height: 131cm
Weight: 24kg
Shoe Size: 23cm

Na Chen
Girl
Age 9
Height: 130cm
Weight: 22kg
Shoe Size: 22.5cm

JiaHui Chen
Girl
Age 9
Height: 129cm
Weight: 21kg
Shoe Size: 22cm

This week, Nov. 3-7, all classes have a math test. Algebra classes will be testing on Tuesday ( A Day) or Wednesday ( B Day) on Chapter 3, Solving Inequalities. Geometry will have a Ch. 3, Geometric Constructions Test on Friday. HOT is offered Monday this week in my room, and Tuesday with Ms. Winnpenny. Remember to use your online practice resources to help you prepare!

I am looking forward to seeing many of you at Student-Led Conferences this week. Please remember that there is also time built into our schedule for you to meet with me. Open times for Core teachers are 1:00-1:30, 2:00-2:30, and 3:00-3:30 Thursday and Friday.*On Thursday there is an additional late time slot to meet, from 4:00-4:30.
Scheduled SLC's in room MS 307 are listed below for my advisory, first names only for protection.

Thurs. 12:30-1:00 Michael, Thyco, Vivian, and Erik

Thurs. 1:30-2:00 Benjamin, Lucy, and Casey

Thurs. 2:30-3:00 Jeffrey and Megan

Fri. 12:30-1:00 Ji-In, Cindy, Kate, and Keith

Fri. 2;30-3:00 David and Nah Young

Recently several students began enrichment work in Algebra. Enrichment varies from one teacher to another, and sometimes students don't fully understand enough about expectations to communicate them accurately to parents, especially 8th graders!
All students are pretested before starting a new unit. If a student demonstrates mastery on over half of the upcoming benchmarks, he/she has the opportunity to do enrichment work in lieu of the regular classroom work. Students working on enrichment activities are given a learning contract which must be signed by both the parent and student before the next class. This contract lists expectations for class participation and homework. Homework may include compacted lessons, enrichment on Algebra, problem solving, and Geometry lessons. Enrichment students participate with the class during warm up activities and then work together apart from the class. Enrichment students are still held accountable for the Algebra standards and benchmarks; they take the same quizzes and tests.

The overall goal for enrichment is to allow students the opportunity for advanced learning when mastery of standards is demonstrated. Students may choose to remain with the class and complete enrichment activities at home as well. Enrichment students may change with each unit depending on pretest results, and enrichment students are expected to score above an 85% on summative tests in order to continue their participation in extension activities.

Up and running, finally!  Homework schedules will be posted at the beginning of each unit under the appropriate page, Algebra A Days, Algebra B Days, and Geometry. 

We are off to a great start in math this year.  I am excited that SAS has allowed us to offer Math 8, Algebra, and Geometry to our 8th grade students.  Students in Math 8 will move on to a high school Algebra course next year as freshman.  Students in Algebra that meet the standards will move on to Geometry, while Geometry students will be placed in Algebra 2/Trigonometry based on performance.

Progress Reports were posted last week on Edline, so be sure that you look for yours!  Updates will be posted after every unit test as well.  I am looking forward to a great year.