Welcome to Pre-Algebra!

Hello!

My name is Matthew and I am your child's Pre-Algebra teacher. As promised, this is the follow up email. :)

We met as a class for the first time on Thursday and in that time your children received two things: a sheet of paper describing what they will need for Pre-Algebra and how to contact me (posted on the blog) and their first assignment.

The Blog - http://preal2nd.blogspot.com/
We have a class blog! What grew out of an experiment in keeping parents informed about class happenings last year has grown into a staple of my morning classes. A blog is kind of like an online journal that dates posts chronologically. I have grown to at most posting several times a day and at the least every other day. Once I realized that I could post pictures to the blog, my postings grew from simply words to pictures of notes from the chalk/white board... to becoming an online reservoir of my classes. There have even been videos of me teaching posted on the blog! Besides being a little nervous about watching myself teach ;), all of these mediums (text, picture, video) are meant to help keep you informed about what is going on in your child's math class and to serve as a resource for your child should they lose track of their notebooks or are absent from class.

You may be thinking, "Jeez, Matthew?! Do I have to check this blog every day??" Well, that depends. Can you manually check it everyday? Sure. Do you have to? No. It is totally up to you to choose to check in on what's happening in class. Is there a way to make it a bit easier to stay informed? Yup and I'm glad you asked! On the right hand side of the blog there is a box that says "Subscribe via email" and when you enter your email in there and follow the instructions, you can get an email (once a day if there has been a post) that contains all of the posts for that day. Sometimes the timestamp is a bit wonky, but most of the time the emails go through without a hitch.

I want to go ahead and invite you to Back to School Night on Thursday, September 25. On this night you will be able to put a face to all of your child's teachers and we will get to spend some time together. During your time with me, I'm planning on showing you the blog and some of the cool things it can do.

Emails
So, you may be wondering, am I going to continue to get long emails from you, Matthew? Only occasionally, I promise! Starting this week, notes like this will be posted on the blog and I will only email you when the information I'm sharing is time sensitive. I'll also be posting this email up on the blog as soon as I hit send. :)

The First Assignment
I always like to give kids a getting to know each other first activity when we meet for the first time. I'm only going to mention that the assignment exists, and that it is due (along with their Materials) on Tuesday. I'm going to post the actual assignment online on the blog in a little while... you can check it out there. :)

Materials
On the sheet of paper your children came home with there was a list of materials they will need. The most important are a 3-ring binder, paper, pencil, and a pencil pouch. As second and third years, my expectations are high for their ability to get and stay organized. Their Pre-Algebra Notebook will serve as the vessel for learning another (quite strict) way of staying organized. On the sheet I say 2-3 inches and I tried to convey to the kids on Thursday that I wasn't kidding--their notebooks will fill up fast. I also urged them to recycle old notebooks for their Pre-Algebra notebook--those 3-ring binders are expensive! And, just to be clear, Pre-Algebra can be the only thing in that binder. Pencils. They must have pencils. Writing in pencils for math is one of the hills that I will die on! And the pencil pouch. I encourage the use of a pencil pouch to ensure that the pencils that I'm so adamant about live in their notebooks with all the rest of their Pre-Algebra stuff. Therefore, there is never the "I don't have a pencil!" dilemma. :)

Whew! What an email!

That's more than enough for now. On Tuesday/Wednesday there will be a post on the blog about how we organize our notebooks and then we'll be off and running!

I hope this email finds you all well, enjoying your Labor Day weekend, and let me know if you have any questions! Love and light--matthew