Author: User

Parent Communication
Parents are encouraged to talk with their child’s teacher at any time during the school year. Student progress is assessed every six weeks (six progress reports per school year) for middle school students. Following is a list of ways that you may communicate with and/or review your child’s progress:
SnapGrades/School Fusion
Teacher’s web site/e-mail/voice mail
Regular parent-teacher conferences (Fall/Spring)

Ways You Can Help Your
Child at Home
P Set expectations early that your son/daughter will take three to four years of high school math and science classes, while still keeping in mind that not all children will have the interest, ability or desire to pursue careers in science or math.
P Encourage your son or daughter to collect things, handle things, take things apart and see how they work. They need to take bikes, clocks, flowers, and other things apart.
P Do not be concerned about children getting things right. You need to be concerned if they aren’t curious and wondering about things.
P Do you give your sons and daughters different kinds of toys? Do you encourage them to pursue different kinds of hobbies? It is believed that one important reason boys do better in mathematics is because boys have grown up playing with more mathematical and scientific toys.
P Do not “over help” your daughter; (a tendency of parents with daughters much more than with sons). Instead, assist her to become able to rely on her own judgment, develop independence and the ability to make her own decision.
P Talk about career plans with your children. Point out that many occupations require good math and science backgrounds, and that their career options will be limited if they do not continue to take these subjects throughout school.

Connected Math was funded by the National Science Foundation. This program supports our curriculum by developing students’ knowledge and understanding of mathematics that is rich in connections—
Connections among core ideas in mathematics
Connections between it and applications in other school subjects
Connections between the planned teaching/learning activities and the special aptitudes and interests of middle school students
Connections among the mathematics strands of the elementary and high school programs
Connections with the applications of mathematical ideas in the real world
Observations of patterns and relationships are the basis for acquiring deep understanding in mathematics. Therefore, the curriculum is organized around interesting problem settings. Students solve problems, and in so doing, they observe patterns and relationships. This encourages higher level thinking and problem solving while building on a core that makes sense of mathematics and its uses.
Students in grades 6-8 will . . .
ü learn to value mathematics
ü become confident in their abilities to do mathematics
ü become mathematical problem solvers
ü learn to communicate mathematically
ü learn to reason mathematically

Grand Blanc Community Schools

A Parent’s Guide
to our Middle School
MATH
PROGRAM

The GBCS mathematics curriculum is derived from the Common Core State Standards.

Our Mission

The mission of Grand Blanc Community Schools, the hallmark of academic and personal excellence, is to ensure students actualize their own unique genius, freely and without fear, through a system distinguished by
Dedication to the discovery of profound learning.
Exemplary models of character and judgment.
Global experiences in life and living
Emphasis on individual autonomy and self direction.
Unremitting pursuit of the highest human ideals.

6th Grade
Expectations for students in Grade 6 —Students will . . .
■ understand ratio concepts and use ratio reasoning to solve problems
■ understand and use the concept of a unit rate
■ solve decimal, percentage, and rational number problems
■ apply and extend previous understandings of multiplication and division to divide fractions by fractions
■ compute fluently with multi-digit numbers and find common factors and multiples
■ apply and extend previous understandings of numbers to include positive and negative rational numbers
■ plot ordered pairs and identify points on all four quadrants of the coordinate plane
■ use variables, write expressions and equa- tions, combine like terms, and solve equa- tions (i.e., 2x + 3 = 19; x = 8)
■ reason about and solve one-variable equa- tions and inequalities
■ represent and analyze quantitative relation- ships between dependent and independent variables
■ find volume and surface area of cubes and rectangular prisms
■ develop understanding of statistical variability
■ summarize and describe distributions

7th Grade
Expectations for students in Grade 7 —Students will . . .
■ analyze proportional relationships and use them to solve real-world and mathematical problems
■ add, subtract, multiply, and divide rational num- bers
■ use properties of operations to generate equivalent expressions
■ solve multi-step real-life problems posed with positive and negative rational numbers in any form
■ draw, construct, and describe geometrical figures and describe the relationships between them
■ solve real-life and mathematical problems involving angle measure, area, surface area, (including circles) and volume
■ use random sampling to draw inferences about a population and draw informal comparative inferences about two populations
■ investigate chance processes and develop, use, and evaluate probability models

8th Grade
Expectations for students in Grade 8 —Students will . . .
■ know that numbers can be either rational or irrational; use rational approximations for irrational numbers
■ work with radicals and integer exponents, including numbers in scientific notation
■ understand the connections between pro- portional relationships, linear equations, and lines
■ solve linear equations and pairs of simul- taneous linear equations
■ define, evaluate, and compare functions; distinguish between linear and non-linear functions
■ understand congruence and similarity in two- dimensional figure, using rotations, dilations, reflections, and translations
■ understand and apply the Pythagorean Theorem
■ solve real-world and mathematical problems involving volume of cones, cylinders, and sphere
■ investigate patterns of association in bivariate data; informally fit a line of best fit to scatter plots

For a complete list of K-12 Common Core State Standards, see the Common Core State Standards Initiative webpage at http://www.corestandards.org/Math.