October 22, 2010

Dear Dad,

I have just finished module 1 in math. I learned lots of things withing this module. I am about to tell you the topics we learned and some activities we did with them.

We started off learning about graphs and when you should use a bar graph or a line graph. The time to use a bar graph is when you have information where there's categories involved. The time to use a line graph is when you have recorded information over time.

The next thing that we all learned to do was frequency tables. When we first came to school we got a list of topics that we will learn in this module and frequency tables was one of them. When I saw that I was confused and wondered what that topic was about. Then we started to learn about them and it was a lot of fun. With the frequency tables we learned how to make them and record information on them.

Another activity that we did was number tricks. Meaning that you take a number, add 2, subtract 4, Multiply by 7, and so on. We did 2 work sheets on that so that it would be easier to transition into algebra. I really liked algebra because it's like a puzzle to me. Mom says that when I get into high school the problems will seem even more fun and like a puzzle. I hope she's right!

One of the other things that we did was we were to module a number sequence then have a word sentence, table, and graph to go with it. We did a couple of things with those and the transition into our next topic. The next topic was to find the nth number of a number sequence. Most of these transitions you will notice, relates to somewhat extent to each other. I think that these transitions helped me get the concept even before we started the topic.

The next thing we learned about was to compute with exponents. Computing with exponents was one that I liked. Yet at the same time after a while I think it kind of gets annoying. Plus if you told me to compute a problem with exponents I wouldn't quite understand it until you explained it more.

The next two topics are to do with probability. One is to use fractions from 0-1 to estimate probability. The first work sheet was called Introduction to Probability. 0 meant not possible and 1 meant certain. Then they asked you a bunch of different questions like will you have cereal for breakfast this week. And other different things like that.

Then from there we transitioned into experimental and theoretical probability. We used spinners, dice, decks of cards, everything we could get our hands on for probability. The big project fro probability was a poster. You had to bring in your own supplies and you had to have a table with the theoretical and experimental probability with a frequency table. I used letter dice and was very happy with my end result.

The last topic so far that we learned in math was order of operations. Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction or as you my know it as Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally or even PEMDAS. I had already learned all that last year so it was an review but the good thing about it was that I perfected it.

I really liked math this past module and I can't wait to find out what I'm going to learn in the next!

Yours Truly,

BREM