We're Baaaaack!

Hey guys, sorry it's been a minute since I last posted. I get home and my weekends get so busy that I sometimes run out of time to recap and preview on the weekends. That's why I am doing this posting now, before I even leave the school!

This past week, we left our study of scientific notation and turned our attention to square roots. To recap, scientific notation is a shorter way of writing very LARGE or very small numbers. You do so by writing a factor (a number) that is greater than or equal to 1 but less than ten, and then multiplying it by power of 10. The key thing to remember is that the exponent of that power of 10 does NOT signify how many zeroes are in front of or behind the numbers. The exponent ONLY means how many times you have to MOVE THE DECIMAL. Remember also that you DO have to move the decimal, or you have not truly rendered the number in scientific notation. If you need to review this a little more, come see me after school on Wednesday of next week.

From scientific notation, we moved into the beginning of our study of radicals and square roots. Again, let me clear up a common mistake: the square root of a number is NOT just taking it and trying to cut it in half. You have to ask yourself, "What number can I multiply BY ITSELF to get the number under the radical?" For example, the square roots of 25 are 5 and -5, because 5 x 5 = 25 and (-5) x (-5) = 25. Remember that when you see the radicand sign, you are only supposed to name the POSITIVE square root of the number. We spent a little time having you all make a chart of your perfect squares and square roots all the way out to the number 25. Make sure you don't lose that chart! You will need it for some time to come! One last review point I want to make here: remember that the square root of a perfect square is the length of one side of the square. This information will come in handy for you later on in the year.

Next week, we will pick up where we left off. We'll learn how to find radicals on a number line, how to simplify expressions that have radicals, and how to add and subtract radical expressions. This is where the school year gets REALLY interesting, so make sure you are here to get in on all the fun! See ya in the Red Hallway, Knights! 801, SECOND TO NONE!!!