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October 24, 2007

Connor's Math Work 2007/10/24

We had taken a few days off for illness and pressing work, so now it's back to it. I wanted to catch up Connor on a few areas that he hasn't really been exposed to yet, due to Singapore's sequence, but which are prerequisite to the Dolciani pre-algebra. The areas I'm not sure of, given his difficulties with the expressions I gave him, are negatives (in particular, signs in combination like 2 - -4), grouping and canceling, and factors and factoring. So today Connor will be getting some sign work:

Simplify the following:

  1. a - b
  2. -a - b
  3. a + -b
  4. a - -b
  5. -a - -b
  6. a • b
  7. a • -b
  8. -a • b
  9. -a • -b
  10. a / b
  11. -a / -b
  12. a / -b
  13. -a / b
  14. a • b + a • (-b) + -a • b - a • b - -a • b
  15. a / b + -a / b + b / -a - a / b - -a / b
  16. a • -b + a / -b + -a • b - -a / b

Update: He's still not getting this. Sadly, I didn't try explaining the concept early enough in the evening, and I was probably a bit incoherent. I'm giving him the same problems tomorrow, but substituting a = 3 and b = 2, and will ask Steph to plug the explanation gap.

Posted by jeff at October 24, 2007 8:27 AM

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Comments

Don't worry, it will click for him, soon. Keep up the good work.

Have a good weekend

Robin of mytwoblessings

Posted by: Robin of mytwoblessings at October 27, 2007 2:46 PM

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