Kendall
-
Posts
1,904 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by Kendall
-
-
So a little update. She took the ACT and based on practice tests I was hoping for a 19 on the math. She got a 24! I'm more excited about this than the 34 and up my older kids got. Ruth reminded me to look at the long haul and it is nice to see some progress after months and months of plugging away steadily.
-
8
-
-
We covered naming acids today.
HOCl (problem) HClO (table in the lesson) According to the answer key these are the same. What is the deal with the change in order? Will we encounter this again or is this a typo?
The text gives a table of common polyatomic ions and says that you must learn them. Then the problems use a Bromium ion that isn’t in the table. I am assuming that because it is in the same column as Chlorine it forms the same ions with oxygen that Chlorine does and that is how the students were to figure out the name. Is this correct?
Do you have students memorize the ions or use the chart?
Is nomenclature something other kids struggle with? We have been working on the 5th chapter in Zumdahl Introductory Chemistry for 6 or 7 days now. It seems like a long time.
Thanks,
Kendall
-
-
My gut feeling would be to do Algebra 1 with AoPS. When I do Algebra 1 in 7th grade I do it over two years so that I can teach it more deeply. I didn't have AoPS the time I did that, so I did Foerster slowly interspersed with NEM problem solving and challenging problems. With my current 8th grader child we did AoPS prealgebra first instead of moving right to Algebra I and some Foerster Algebra 1 and are about to pick up the Foerster Algebra 1 pace and add in AoPs Introductory Algebra all to strengthen mathematical thinking and problem solving abilities. I'm doing it imperfectly for sure, but I would rather them be deep in algebra 1 and since it is so foundational. I also have the unpopular opinion that moving farther in high school is not as desirable as deeper. There are obviously exceptional kids who can do deep and far, but for me Calc 1 in high school is enough and I deepen the middle school years rather than accelerate. Others make other choices and that is fine.
Just my opinion and well worth what you are paying for it :001_smile:
Kendall
-
I think the biggest problem is definitely the retention of specific words. I am completely puzzled as well. LOL! Roots do help her. Sometimes the concept takes a while, too, but she gets the concepts sometimes years before the terms stick with her. It took a long time (several years) to know what a variable was. She could work with them, substitute values for them, solve for them, but if I said what is the variable she couldn't remember what that word meant. I always remind her that a variable can vary. Same with coefficient.
She can work right triangle trig problems and even doesn't have trouble when finding the angle rather than one of the sides and seems to understand the idea of inverse, but every time she would have to look up the ratio's. If much time has passed she might not remember that the ratios exist and apply to a specific problem, but once reminded she then remembers what is involved. I used SOHCAHTOA with her for two years whenever it came up. She could never get that to help her remember the ratios. After attending a homeschool conference and hearing about "right brain methods" I VERY skeptically tried them. I drew a picture and told a story and she added things to the story and picture and we wrote the ratio in the picture and taped them to the wall. In a few weeks time she knew them without looking. I just have to accept that her brain doesn't work like mine and we need to do these kind of things to help her with terms. It is just time consuming and there is only so much wall space LOL!
Because it is time consuming to get words down I need to pick the most important ones to focus on so that we can move forward in concepts. You have confirmed my gut feeling that I should continue naming the properties such as commutative but not spend our time drilling them. The names such as irrational and rational etc I will work harder with her on. It may be picture time for those.
She can tell me the degree of a polynomial easily if I remind her what the word degree refers to. She can identify exponents (again sometimes I have to remind her which part is called the exponent) and knows that you add the exponents of the term with the highest total of exponents. She seems pretty solid on identifying which expressions are polynomials and that they can only involve the three operations on a variable. That was new this year, or at least hasn't been seen since Algebra one 2.5-3 years ago. Whether she will remember that the term polynomial applies to this concept I can't yet say. But that term comes up enough that I will work on getting that one.
Thanks for the input!
-
2
-
-
Thanks again for all of the input. I have a few questions, but thought I would update you. We spent last semester going through the Lial's chapter tests, continually cycling through "flashcards" from ACT/PSAT problems, and doing other review questions daily. I had hoped to continue this at least some during the summer, but we did very little. In spite of that, she is remembering a lot. I am really seeing the fruits of the constant repetition and am thrilled that some of this lasted through the summer. I also used some of what I think would be called right brain methods for remembering a few things, such as the sine, cosine, tangent ratios and what an integer is. I think I need to continue that.
We have started the algebra 2 text by Foerster. She has so much trouble remembering terms and there are quite a few at first, all of the axioms-distributive, associative, commutative, rational, irrational, natural numbers, degree of polynomial.
I'm wondering if I should spend our review time nailing distributive, commutative, reflexive, symmetric, identity, associative? What are your thoughts on that? The author has review questions at the beginning of each lesson so it is reviewed, but not enough for her to remember what the names mean. She knows how to distribute and commute and associate.
The names of the groups of numbers I'm thinking I should keep working on until she remembers them.
Also, how important is it that they remember that y=4 is called a constant function?
Thanks,
Kendall
-
Our library has several unabridged audios on hoopla by these readers
Simon Vance
Ralph Cosham
Nadia May
Perry Keenlyside and Anton Lesser
librivox has
Thomas Copland
and several different versions with various readers.
I thought I'd ask in case someone else has already weeded through these to find the best or at least can tell me the ones to avoid.
Thanks,
Kendall
-
Thank you so much everyone, I will read more carefully this afternoon and post again, but I did want to quickly say that this below is what I was showing her to do it and this was confusing to her. She wanted to do them one at a time and now that I think about it, she wasn't writing anything down. So I will correct that at least. More later...
Convert 6.5 meters to yards: m 100 cm 1 in 1 yd 6.5 ----- x ---------- X ----------- X --------- = 7.1 yd 1 1 m 2.54 cm 36 in-
3
-
-
In an attempt to ease the first few weeks of chemistry I’ve been reviewing scientific notation and unit conversion/dimensional analysis problems with my rising 10th/11th graders to whom I will be teaching both Algebra 2 and Chemistry. My rising 11th grade has always struggled with math. I started with an example of converting 6.5 m to yards.
It did not make any sense to her. What she wanted to do,and this does make sense to her, is multiply 6.5 by 100 to convert to cm. Then divide by 2.54 to convert to inches. Then divide by 12 to convert to feet and then divide by 3 to convert to yards.
Which of course is correct. I tried to show her that what I was teaching her was the same calculations. I told her that when she is working with units that are less familiar to her and less intuitive to her that knowing the process would make things easier and that the process is faster. I am looking ahead to working with moles and atomic mass,etc. Sometimes in chemistry I figure out what to do based on where to place things so the units cancel or end up in the right place. Maybe that is a crutch and her way is better.
Talk to me about this from a pedagogical standpoint. Probably eventually she might understand or at least remember it enough to do it, but it will be a long time coming if the past is any indicator. Since there is a way she understands it, at least with familiar units, should I let her do it her way? Should I let her do the problems her way and then redo them with her the other way?
BTW, none of this is “attitudeâ€. She really just has some mental glitches when it comes to mathematics and just does not see things the way most kids do. She also has difficulty remembering processes/concepts. Lots of reteaching and repetition and mixed practice is the only way I’ve found thus far to make slow/steady progress in math.
Thanks,
Kendall
-
1
-
-
Thank you for the input. I know the first time one of my kids tried to do one I would have learned that they aren't specific enough. I hadn't thought about them being creative, though I can see now that some are. I think I'll leave those in for options for my 9 year old prolific creative writer. I do want what they produce to show what they have learned/read. Probably what I should do is try to write one of each and see what the more specific steps should be.
-
1
-
-
I want my children(4th,6th,8th and maybe even occasionally 10th,11th) to do some more output from the history, science, and literature reading that they do. I don’t have a curriculum with worksheets or workbooks or questions. I wrote some writing ideas on index cards and labeled them with science, history, literature or some combination.
I would love some help figuring out if this is a good idea and how to go about using them.
How often should I have them do this? daily but vary the subject, several times a week?
How much time should I take out of reading content to have them do one?
Do you have other ideas for cards or improvements on how I worded things?
Any and all input or critiques are welcome!
Thanks,
Kendall
Here are the cards labeled with all three subjects
Card 1) Imitate a sentence you like or improve a sentence or two in your reading
Card 2) Write a scene for a play taken either from a historical event (which could include a scientific discovery) or a scientific process
Card 3) Write a song about an even, person, process, scientific term/fact/law
Card 4) Draw a scene from an event, a map with symbols or pictures, a diagram of a science concept or process
Card 5) Write a poem or section of poem somehow related to what you have read
Cards labeled science/history
Card 1) Write a newspaper article about one of the following as though you are in that time period a) a new product or technology b) a historical event c) a scientific discovery
Card 2) Summarize a portion of what you read
Cards labeled Literature and history
Card 1) Tell a story from the viewpoint of
a) A real person from a time past
b) A fictional character that is in a past scene
c) A different character in a literature book
Cards labeled literature
Card 1) Write a paragraph about one of the following
a) Who the main character is and what the conflict is and who or what opposes the main character
b) How the character changes or grows
c) The setting
Card 2) Find a paragraph you like and dig deep:outline, reread, look for literary devices, analyze in any way you can think of
-
2
-
-
Would this be a good stretch for a slightly below level reading level 6th grader? Too easy for a strong 8th grader?
Any cons to these books? We'd be using part of Volume 2 and all of Volume 3 this year
Thanks
-
They are in the Appendix I of WWS 2, at least I think all of them are there. It looks like it. I just printed the charts out but did not have my kids hand write them. We referred to them at times.
-
I did WWS 2 with a 9th grader who hadn't even done WWS 1 and it worked fine. I owned WWS 1 and was using it with younger children so I referred to it when we needed to. When you get to each topic in WWS 2 you could look at the instruction for that topic in WWS 1, cover what you hadn't and just skip the style stuff and the writing project in WWS 1.
-
Thank you. This is very helpful and has confirmed that the text left that out, and I shouldn't then expect them to figure it out from what they read in the text. I will follow you advice and share it with them, but not require that they memorize it at this level.
-
1
-
-
Orbital Filling Chapter 10
1. In a principal energy level that has d orbitals, the s orbital from the next level fills before the d orbitals in the current level.
Then in the partial electron configurations chart for elements numbered
24, 29, 41-47, 78,79,
The chart shows 4s1 or 5s1 or 6s1 and then 3d or 4d or 5d respectively, except for element 46 which shows only 4d.
I’m sure these constitute some exception, but I don’t see where in the text this is explained (Introductory Chemistry:A foundation by Zumdahl chapter 10).
This is not an honors course. Should I just avoid giving them those elements to give the electron config for? Or is it important at this level for them to get these strange ones?
Thank you,
Kendall
-
1
-
-
My rising 8th grader also finished MEP 5 and then moved to AoPS. I think there was something that she either didn't remember or hadn't been covered in MEP. It might have been multiplying and dividing decimals. I taught her that and she continued on.
-
Me three! I have the text and have worked through chapter 8, but I haven't even started looking at labs yet. I followed that group. I suppose we can just use that forum and start chatting about things?
-
Thank you! I noticed on that document that Oxygen was listed last(HIO), which is what I expected rather than the HOI. Further research shows that hypoiodic acid is known both as HOI and HIO, though HIO seems to be used more.
Following the pattern for the group works for Br and I. Thanks.
-
I checked the chart and there aren't any listed with I or Br, but it is good to know I could work from other named polyatomic if I had it.
-
I am working through Zumdahl Introductory Chemistry. I've just completed Chapter 5 on nomenclature. I must be missing something. I don’t see what to do with these. The book has a chart of common poyatomic ions, but Br O3
And OI isn’t on the chart.
Question 40 part c and d
Name each of the following acids
c) HBrO3
d) HOI
Working backwards from the answer of bromic acid it looks like the BrO3 must be an polyatomic Ion called bromate but I can't see that the book taught how to name that. The book gave a list of polyatomic acids and said to memorize them, but that one isn't on the list.
d) the answer to HOI is hypoiodous acid. So I guess OI is called hypoiodite?
Should we have been able to figure this out or should the polyatomic ion have been given to us?
Thanks,
Kendall
-
The 39 Steps by Buchan (a few sequels too I think)
The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (really, they should try these. I've given this to teen nephews visiting and they have devoured them as did my 3 sons and a few daughters so far) I prefer the ones written in the 60's and 70's but you need to start with this first one.
The Rithmatist by Sanderson
-
I pulled out all of our calculators this morning and had forgotten I had the Casio. We haven't used it. It might be perfect.
It is also good to have the reminder that the AP Calc exam requires the graphing calculator. I taught AP Calc last year to my son and hadn't stopped to remember that it is required there. That will only apply to the younger of these two daughters, but I need to keep in mind that at some point she will need to use the graphing calculator. I wanted to move away from a graphing calculator heavy pre calculus and probably still will. Oh well, that is another issue that I have a year to figure out.
-
1
-
-
The Precalculus text I used with my oldest 3 (I think I will switch for the next kids) required a graphing calculator (TI 84 silver plus i think-college son took it). Once I started using it, I found myself grabbing it instead of my scientific when I do calculations. I still have a $5 garage sale TI 83 that I use now.
I like that I can see multiple calculations on the screen.
I like that I can use the answer or entry buttons to get back what I had entered to either verify that I entered it correctly or to redo a similar calculation and just change a number.
I like that I can see what the child entered so that I can talk to them about what is happening when they enter correctly and what they did wrong when not.
For my daughter that struggles, I like that the buttons are pushed in the order you write them rather than backward such as tangent .3 rather than .3 tangent. She struggles enough to learn the math, having to learn to reverse it on the calculator just adds something else to try to understand. If I am working with two of them side by side I thought it would be easier to have them both entering things the same way.
I tried a non graphing calculator with a screen but I didn't like it. Maybe I didn't give it a good enough try.
I guess I am wondering if it is important or valuable for especially the struggling child to learn how to enter things backwards using a regular scientific. She is semi- aware that she needs to on the regular scientific, but when we use it she is distracted away from the math by trying to remember how to enter and I don't know if working on that until she is comfortable is valuable use of our time.
I do know that the graphing capabilities and other features unique to the graphing calculator are not needed for any testing nor math.
Thanks for all of the input. I do have several different regular scientific calculators and will experiment with the speed issue. One of them acts like the graphing, looking at it I think it is called Natural Display. It is a Casio fx-115 ES another garage sale find:) which I haven't used much but am going to use side by side with the TI 83 today to see what I think.
Thanks for all the input so far!
Chemistry nomenclature question
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
Jetta,
Thank you. Yes, this helps. You are very brave to do this with kids that aren't your own. I'm fumbling through with 2 of my own. I wish I had started having them memorize things sooner. That's going in the notes for next time.
I am learning that I need to spend more time looking at the different ways of teaching some things, such as naming type II ionic compounds and balancing equations. There are quite a few different methods and one of my students needs certain kinds of methods to understand. Unfortunately I'm still not sure ahead of time which method will work, but I think I'm getting closer to guessing better. We'll see later this week when we start balancing equations.
Kendall