I just found out that about half my alg 2 class will be out to an assembly on the second day of school. On the first day we are doing intros, tools, and problem solving. On the second day I was hoping to start right into the first chapter. Unfortunately I really don't want have my class to miss the first real lesson especially since it is important material. What would you do in this situation? I really don't want to spend it reviewing alg 1 material as we're supposed to only review that material as it comes up in little pieces. What would you do in this situation?
Why not give them a review sheet to see exactly what they know/remember? I know our alg II teacher did this and he was surprised at what the students didn't remember.
This happened to me too this year. I taught my algebra 1 students to play 24. It was a good review of the basic operations, plus it challenges them to think. Things like this will happen more often than you'd like this year. Have some backup plans and just roll with it!
During the year is fine because then I can just give them related activities and workshops to make-up...it's just rough before learning any real material. Anyway I came up with a lab experiment to do as a small class that brings in a lot of alg 1 skills, but it can be justified as it teaches problem solving as well.
Review factoring. They'll need the review, and most will have forgotten it during the year they spent on Geometry. They'll need particular help on trinomials that have a leading coefficient other than one.
We actually cover that in the first chapter...it's like the only topic that is reviewed, but they get away with saying it's not review by saying now we're just using it to solve equations. All of them will be there for factoring the next week. My activity focuses on systems and equations with fractions/decimals, but with problem solving.
Is there some type of problem solving activity you can have the students do using skills they should have learned in previous math courses? (Note: I have absolutely no math background, so I don't know if this would even make sense at the beginning of the year!) I hate it when a schedule change like that happens the first few days of school! I have to miss my 2nd period class on Tuesday so I can attend a PPT for one of my students, and it's only the 4th day of school!
