Thursday, March 24, 2005

Spring Break Starts in 2 Hours!!!

Have a relaxing Spring Break!!! Come back revitalized and rejuvenated and ready to attack some serious math.

Watch the blog over the break. I will try to post some recreational items.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Preparing for Thursday's Exam

I know that some of you are having some trouble in this unit and would like some extra work to help prepare for your exam. Check out this website(topics 14, 18 and 19) for some online quizzes to help you review some of the topics we have studied.

Let me know if this helps by leaving a comment.

You can also go back to my post for Feb.11th. There are links to the GIZMO on polynomial graphs and a lesson on polynomials.

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Composition of Functions

I thought I would post a blogging prompt to help you work on that blogging mark for your exam on Wednesday.

Tomorrow we will be studying composition of functions. Once you have seen the lesson I would like you to contribute links and other resources on the web related to composition of functions. The idea is to find things on the web that would help others understand composition of functions or learn about them if they did not understand the lesson that day.

Hope this helps you get that blogging mark!!!!

Blogging for Marks

We have an exam coming up this Wednesday. Just a reminder that you can obtain a mark on your next exam for contributing to this blog. Here is the criteria for obtaining that mark.

- You can make a comment or post to the site discussing something you learned in class.

- You can contribute a picture, link or comment related to something we studied in class.

You still have a few days to earn that mark!!!!

Pi Week Trivia Contest

Congratulations to all of you that participated in this contest. I received many responses and guesses to our questions. Just to recap our winners:

Day 1: Matt Laroque and Caitie Clapp
Day 2: Sandra Geelen
Day 3: Caitie Clapp

It was amazing to see how motivated some of you are when your reward is some food!!!!

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

New, Harder, Pi Trivia!!!

Which teacher's classroom number appears in the digits 151 - 200 of Pi??

I require you to tell me their classroom number AND their name.

Happy hunting!!!!

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Pi question for today

For those of you that missed the question in class:

Find another famous mathematician, other than Einstein, that has their birthday on Mar. 14th??

Happy hunting!!!!

Remember their is an edible prize for the first person to correctly answer this question.

Monday, March 14, 2005

Pi Day!!!


Pi Saying
Originally uploaded by tkaminski.
So today is Pi day. That is because Pi = 3.14 and today is the third month(Mar.) and the 14th day. Cool hey!!!

Here are a couple of pictures from Pi Day last year. These were created by students in my classes.

I want you to post other pictures or comments realated to Pi!!! Start digging. They should not be hard to find.

Edible Pi


Edible Pi
Originally uploaded by tkaminski.

Friday, March 11, 2005

Equations and Graphs of Polynomial Functions

We talked about the multiplicity of the zeros in a polynomial graph today. This link summarizes what we discussed, and for some of you, may provide the AHA!!!! experience.

We then moved on to determining the equation of a polynomial. The above link also helps demonstrate how this works.

Look at the following GIZMO to help with determining the equation of a polynomial graph.

Don't forget to watch Numb3ers tonight!!!!!

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Graphs of Polynomial Functions

Today we talked about how the equation of a polynomial defines its graph. We also talked about some generalizations for even and odd degree polynomial graphs.

This link on polynomial graphs summarizes our lesson today. Hopefully it will also assist some of you that are still having trouble remembering all of the properties.

Monday, March 07, 2005

More stuff to help with Tueday's Exam!!

Go to this link and look for the section on quadratic functions. It will give you an online quiz to help you test whether or not you know anything about quadratics. I hope this helps get ready for tomorrow's quiz!!!

What do you think of this blog??

I introduced the blog to you in class today. What do you think of this?? Do you think it will be useful to you?? If you have looked at the blog, what can I do to improve it or make it more useful??

Please comment on this using the comment link.

Saturday, March 05, 2005

Preparing for Tuesday's Exam

Some of you are having some trouble creating the equation of a quadratic function from its graph. Try this link. Select the equation of a quadratic (f(x) = A(x+B)^2) then click on the middle button at the bottom of the screen. It creates a graph. Your job is to try to determine the coefficients of the equation and type them in for A, B and C. Finally, click the bottom left hand button to check your answer.

Hope this helps you get ready for Tuesday!!!!

Numb3ers


numb3rs-main_a
Originally uploaded by tkaminski.
I would like to know if any of my students or parents watch the TV program Numb3ers that comes on Friday nights? The program is similar to CSI but they use mathematics to help catch criminals. Last night's episode was really good.

If you have not watched this program, I think you would like it.

My First Post

Here is my first attempt at blogging. I hope that this site becomes a valuable discussion area for myself, my students and my parents. The idea is to get students talking about math. So, here it goes!!!!