Year 7 – Area of Triangles

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To calculate the area of a triangle use the formula:

Area = One half multiplied by the base multiplied by the height  (A=1/2 x bh)

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Year 8 – Measurement and Geometry

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National Curriculum Standards: Students convert between units of measurement for area and for volume. They find the perimeter and area of parallelograms, rhombuses and kites. Students name the features of circles, calculate circumference and area, and solve problems relating to the volume of prisms.

To calculate the volume of any prism, multiply the area of the base by the height (or in the case above, the trapezium by the length of the trailer). Make sure all the units are the same before starting your calculations.

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Year 7 – Measurement and Geometry

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National Curriculum Standard: “Students use formulas for the area and perimeter of rectangles.”

The perimeter of a rectangle is calculated by adding the four sides. The area of a rectangle is calculated by multiplying the length by the width.

Perimeter =2 x (L+W) = 2L + 2W

Area = Length x Width = LW  

Find at least three rectangles around the classroom and measure the length and width. Draw a sketch showing the object and the measurements, including the units (millimetres, centimetres or metres). Calculate the perimeter and the area of the object using the formulae above.

For example; your laptop, the table top, your maths book, a window pane, the door, the whiteboard, the front of the heater, the noticeboard etc.

The perimeter of the locker door will be:

(2 x 35) + (2 x 59) = 70 + 118 = 188 cm

The area of the locker door will be:

35 x 59 = 2065 cm^2 (square centimetres)

Great Victorian Coding Challenge

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Over the next few weeks we are working with Scratch to create projects that demonstrate maths concepts using simple drag-and-drop programming. Please make sure you have completed the following steps:

1. Join Scratch with your school Username (eg gow0054) and Password. Being a registered member allows you to save and share your work. Make sure Mrs Gow has recorded your Scratch username.

2. Join the Hawkesdale P12 College Studio and the Victorian Coding Challenge (1, 2 and 3) Studios on Scratch, so you can share your work and see what other students have created.

3. Challenge #1: Create a character that draws a shape and upload to the Hawkesdale P12 College page.

4. Draw your initials, like these students in 5/6 Clark/Smith. Can you translate and reflect your initials so they appear in all four quadrats?

5. Challenge #2: Create a project that explains a maths concept. For example:

  • Draw  your initials in block letters and calculate their perimeter and the area they cover. Use the Cartesian Co-ordinate grid as a background.
  • Explain how to calculate the perimeter of a polygon or circle.
  • Name the parts of a circle (radius, diameter, circumference, sector, arc)
  • Describe different triangles (equilateral, isoceles, scalene, right-angled, acute-angled or obtuse-angled)
  • Explain how the sum of angles in a triangle always equals 180 degrees.
  • Explain how the sum of angles in a quadrilateral always equals 360 degrees
  • Explain how to calculate the area of a polygon (triangle, rectangle, parallelogram, trapezium, kite) or circle
  • Describe right angles, straight angles and complementary (adds to 90 degrees), supplementary (adds to 180 degrees) and equal angles.
  • Describe ‘pi’ and how it can be used to calculate the circumference and area of circles.
  • Describe Euler’s Rule about the faces, vertices and edges of a polyhedron (Faces + Vertices – Edges = 2)

Make sure you add your project to the Hawkesdale P12 College Studio page.

6. Challenge #3: Create a simple game that uses maths concepts. It could be something like this Hungry Fish game. Someone even created a Scratch project for Co-ordinate Grid Battleships.

Welcome Back for Term 2!

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This term we will be studying Measurement and Geometry.

Year 7 Maths (JacPlus Chapter 9 – Measurement and Chapter 5 – Geometry) 

By the end of this term I hope you will be able to:

  • Use appropriate units of measurement
  • Calculate the perimeter of 2D shapes
  • Calculate the area of triangles, quadrilaterals and composite shapes.
  • Identify types of polygons (different triangles and quadrilaterals)
  • Estimate, measure and draw angles between 0 and 360 degrees.
  • Identify the properties of parallel and perpendicular lines and the angles that form between them.
  • Calculate the missing angles in polygons, knowing that the internal angles of a triangle add to 180 degrees.
  • Recognise various transformations (translations, reflections, rotations and dilations)

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Year 8 Maths (JacPlus Chapter 7 – Congruence and Chapter 10 – Measurement)

By the end of this term I hope you will be able to:

  • Use and convert units of measurement for perimeter, area and volume
  • Calculate the area of various quadrilaterals.
  • Calculate the area and perimeter of circles.
  • Calculate the volume of various prisms using formulae.
  • Identify congruent shapes
  • Transform various shapes (translate, dilate, rotate and reflect).
  • Solve geometric problems using congruence.
  • Work out problems around different time zones using the 24 hour clock.

Maths with Scratch!

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Although Victorian Education Week is six weeks away (May 17th to 23rd), I am using some of the school holiday break to play with Scratch, so my Year 7 and 8 Maths classes can participate in the “Crack the Code with Maths” challenge. 

Scratch is simple-to-use software, that allows users to create animations using drag-and-drop commands. I hope to use this free program, pre-installed on our government school laptops, as part of our geometry learning this term.

Scratch uses the Cartesian Co-ordinate system to locate ‘sprites’ on a ‘stage’.The screen is a 480 x 360 rectangle, such that: the X position can range from 240 to -240, where 240 is the rightmost a sprite can be and -240 is the leftmost, and the Y position can range from 180 to -180, where 180 is the highest it can be and -180 is the lowest it can be. The centre of the screen, or ‘origin’, is known as (x=0, y=0) or (0,0).

The following links are some examples of what can be achieved with Scratch.

Student tasks:

  • Join the Scratch community, using your school username (eg. gow0049).
  • Explore the links above and other geometry-related Scratch projects.
  • Create your own Scratch project, drawing a different polygon (closed shape with straight sides) in each of four quadrats.
  • Can you create four different triangles? (equilateral acute, isosceles obtuse, scalene right-angled and one other combination of side-length and angle size).
  • Can you create four different quadrilaterals?
  • Can you create a regular pentagon, hexagon, octagon and nonagon?
  • Draw your initials, like these students in 5/6 Clark/Smith Can you translate and reflect your initials so they appear in all four quadrats?

Pythagoras and Square roots

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Pythagoras was a famous mathematician who lived about 2500 years ago. He is credited with being the first person to prove that in any right-angled triangle there is a special relationship between the squares of the three sides. The theorem has an important role to play in everyday life because right-angled triangles occur in construction, navigation, planning, design and packaging. Pythagoras’ theorem is one of the great geometrical theorems.

Man, Myth and Mathematician – Pythagoras of Samos – Genius (YouTube video – 45 minutes)

Pythagorean Theorem Lesson from BrainingCamp

Video Interactive from Maths Interactives (Skate Park)

Video interactive from Maths Interactives (Construction)

Pythagorean interactive from BrainingCamp

1. A carpenter wants to build a handicap ramp over a set of steps that is 12.0m long and 5.0m high. How long will the ramp be?

2. A massive new digital TV has a width of 160cm and a height of 120cm – what is it’s diagonal measurement?

3. A window sill is 12 metres above the road in building. A ladder is placed 5 metres from the wall and reaches the window sill. How long is the ladder?

Counting your cup cakes!

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This is an assessment task for Year 7 Maths.

Cup cake recipe (makes 12 small or 6 large cup cakes)

  • 1/4 cup butter (60 grams)
  • 1/4 cup caster sugar (60 grams)
  • 1 egg
  • 3 drops vanilla essence
  • 3 tablespoons milk (1 tbsp = 20 ml)
  • 3/4 cup S.R. flour (115g)

Method: Set the oven at 200 degrees Celcius. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add essence and egg, mixing well. Add flour and milk alternately, one-third at a time. Stir gently and thoroughly. Place mixture in paper patty pans, two-thirds filling each one. Bake at 200 degrees for 1/5 to 1/4 of an hour. Cool in pans, then decorate each cake with icing.

Questions:

1. Draw up a table and write out the ingredients required for 12 large and 24 large cupcakes.

2. If you want to have equal numbers decorated the same, what different numbers can you use? (What are the factor pairs of 24?)

3. How many minutes is 1/5 of an hour? How many minutes is 1/4 of an hour?

4. If (20ml x 3) of milk is required for 6 large cupcakes, how much of a cup is required for 12 and 24 cupcakes?

5. Calculate the cost of the ingredients for 24 large cupcakes using the Coles or Woolworths online shopping website.

Fractions Eight Different Ways

Learning Intention: Students will understand that there are many different ways to express the concept of ‘part of a whole’.

Success criteria: Each student will produce a poster that demonstrates eight different ways to express a certain fraction, chosen by the distribution of individual fraction cards. We will use these cards and our ‘Fraction Walls’ to demonstrate adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions.

Each student will recieve a card with a fraction and create a poster that shows this fraction eight different ways (as above for one half). When you have finished, place your poster on the number line in the room.

Year 8 – Exponentials with Aliens!

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The Exponential Monster!

So far you have learned about the rules that apply when using indices. But how might they be used in the real world? A good example is when bacteria divide and multiply – the population increases exponentially. The human population took 300,000 years to reach the first billion people, 130 years to add the second billion and only 12 years to add the fifth and sixth billion. We passed the seven billion mark last year. Find a table that shows the world’s human population and draw a graph using Excel, showing this data.