Welcome to SpringBoard Math for Middle School. In this course, students will learn mathematics through a blend of different types of activities. Some activities provide direct instruction, while others ask students to study real-world settings to learn math concepts and how they are used in daily life.
In this unit, two essential questions are asked to focus students’ attention. Students answer these questions through the activities in the unit and reinforce / review them again at the end of the unit. How are fractions, percents, and decimals related? Why is it important to understand the procedures for working with different kinds of numbers? Real-world applications Throughout this course, students will consider questions to help them make connections between math concepts and how to apply those concepts in real-world examples. In this unit, students will investigate patterns. Much like the character Sherlock Holmes, they will use their imaginations to observe, analyze, and search for clues in a situation, diagram, or list of numbers. Investigating patterns will help them use the poem As I was going to St. Ives to develop rules for powers. A power is made up of a numerical base and an exponent. For example, 73 is read as “seven to the third power.”
Students will continue to investigate patterns as they test hypotheses for an imaginary sports league. They will use their hypotheses to explore real-world applications of decimal operations, including scientific notation, a way of writing a number in terms of a power of 10. For example, the number 25,000 can be written as 2.5 × 104. Observations and hypotheses will help students use music and other visual representations to conceptualize fractions and invert them to find their reciprocals. By the end of the unit, students will determine the difference between rational and irrational numbers and estimate square roots.
Students learn academic vocabulary by using new words in the unit activities. They also revisit each new word at the end of the unit to describe how their knowledge of the word has grown. To support your child in learning new vocabulary, you may want to set aside time to discuss new terms and your child’s understanding of those terms.
You can help your child during Unit 1 by talking to them about the concepts in this letter. You might ask questions about what they are learning about the different kinds of numbers. You might also encourage your child to point out examples of fractions and decimals in your daily lives.
Throughout this unit, students will use critical thinking skills and reading and writing learning strategies to draw conclusions and explain their processes as they develop an understanding of different types of numbers. As students solve real-world applications, they are also building the foundation for more complex problem solving in future mathematics classes.