Summer of Seventh Grade: Week 3

 Dislike button by Sean MacEntee

Whew! Epic progress made this week including a tool I wasn't planning on but immediately knew was a must-have. The image is not what you think but you'll understand why it's perfect for this week's review.

New and Exciting: DragonBox
On Friday night I read a Forbes article about the DragonBox algebra app and how it was being used for the Washington State Algebra Challenge, which I hadn't heard about. Hopefully our school district does for next year? Anyway, after poking around reviews and videos I was instantly sold on the recently updated $10 Algebra 12+ app (and I don't pay for anything app related if I can help it) because it really does hone in on practicing algebra concepts and we're already covering the pencil-and-paper practice route. 

I handed my phone to our son with the explanation that it was an algebra concepts game and asked every once in a while if he was doing ok with it. The answer was always yes, and in his first 45 minutes he got up to level 7 (so far there's 20 levels per chapter) of chapter 3 (out of 10 chapters). The app setup is much like Angry Birds levels with a maximum of 3 stars possible for each level and he's mostly gotten them all with some gap areas.

I created my own profile on the app in order to understand the approach, see what needs review in those 1-star gap areas, and have made it through the first two chapters. Real variables start being tossed in around 1-13 and by the end of chapter 2 my head was starting to hurt with properties of equality. I think there may be hope that more advanced algebra concepts will kick in for me on more than a theoretical level. Now if only something could be done about the permanent mental image of my 7th grade math teacher throwing the textbook & hollering ADD OPPOSITE!!! every time I see or (worse) have to say that phrase...

Khan Academy 

Plowed through 10 (!) levels this week including more work with negative numbers for a total of 46 proficiency areas. For the week ahead we'll focus more on strengthening decimals along with factors & multiples before getting to more advanced fractions work. I really appreciate how the Knowledge Map makes it easy to see if we're getting too much of a specialized focus without a sufficiently broad base first.

Key to Algebra by Key Curriculum Press

This week went through some rather dense pages 15-24 of Workbook 2 covering areas of rectangles, like and unlike terms, combining like terms in equations (and not combining those that are close but not quite), adding & subtracting expressions, then some advanced expressions combining all of that with an eye for simplification opportunities. There were a couple of times I had to have him pause and review answers (since his 0ab or 1x³ should be simplified to 0 and x³) but it's very clear he understands even though these are mostly new concepts.

When I explained what like and unlike terms were he smirked then started laughing. I had I hunch I knew what was coming next, and sure enough he kept the smirk and asked, "If these terms were on Facebook, could I like a like term or like an unlike term? Or maybe then unlike it, then like it again? Where is 'unlike' on Facebook anyway?" 

 

McDougal Littell Pre-Algebra textbook (2005)

Reviewed the textbook to make sure he could explain concepts back to me through chapter 2.2.

Reading & Writing
Finished writing his NASCAR party essay with some struggles, we'll step up focusing on idea development for writing since I know the expectations will increase a lot from where elementary school left off. The week ahead we'll take it easy with an acrostic poem though. For reading he wrapped up The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles and is up to chapter 25 of Peter and the Starcatchers.

Looking forward to a productive week ahead!