What was covered
- Math, finishing the last of the Grade 9 material in Maya’s booklet: probability and rational numbers
- Wordy questions used to be the hardest part for Maya, so this week we did a lot of probability word problems with dice, spinners and coins. She has now seen just about every kind of question they can ask
- I’ve been teaching her a few steps for word problems. She reads the whole question first, underlines what it’s asking, and lists every possible outcome in a table or a tree before she counts. She’s using them on her own now and doing really well
- The best part of the class was that Maya took the lead and asked to do the questions herself. Most of the time she caught and fixed her own mistakes before I said anything. That’s a real skill, and it has come from all the practice she’s put in
- We then did the number system and putting numbers in order. That finishes Grade 9, and it’s also the starting point for Grade 10
- From there we started the very beginning of Grade 10: sorting numbers into rational and irrational, and how exponents and square roots can be rewritten as each other
What will be covered next
- I asked Maya if she’d like to slow down and stay with Grade 9 a little longer, and she told me she’s ready to move on
- So we’ll start Grade 10 and keep bringing Grade 9 material into it as we go, so nothing she has learned slips
- If you’d rather we stay with Grade 9 for now, just reply to this note and we’ll do that
- When her Grade 9 math starts at school in November, the school material becomes our main focus again
Homework
- Maya asked if she could hold off on homework until math starts at school, and I’m happy with that. She’s doing so well in class that I don’t want to push it
- So there’s no homework for now, and we’ll start it again in November
Closing statement
Word problems used to be the part Maya found hardest. This week she was taking them on by choice and fixing her own mistakes as she went.
She’s finishing Grade 9 confident and ready for her first steps into Grade 10.
