December 10th/09

We started a new unit called Statistics. Today we got taught Normal Distributions. I actually found this lesson, to be fairly easy and understandable. I am already getting nervous for my math exam and I think one of the major units that I did not understand fully was Probablity. Probabilty has always gone right past my head and I never can understand it or do it when it comes to tests or whichever. I will have to do some of the provincial exam booklets and prepare myself for the exam.

November 30th/09

So I guess since I haven't blogged since last week, I thought I should blog something. I handed in my vectors project on Thursday, and I think I did well. I found it hard though to try and not use pronouns in the introductory and conclusion paragraphs...weird! Anyways, now in math, we are still learning about Probability. I feel like I haven't really learned anything in this unit so far. Like I have had so much work thrown on me, so I am just not use to having many things to do at once and yet focus on a unit that we are currently doing. I am doing accelerated math though, so that must be a good sign! I have 4 tests this week, so I am trying not to stress out about this! Probability is pretty straight forward, but there are some things yet to learn, so we'll see how it goes! I think this is one long blog post, so i am going to stop. now.

November 23rd/09

So i haven't blogged for 10 days, so I figured that I should. We started a new unit called Probability. The Vector Project is due this friday and my project has changed from a hiking trail to going from my place to merves. I already have a start on it, but I will have to buckle down this week and get it done. We learned about Fundamental Counting Principal and Factorial Notation today. In factorial notation there is two main parts of it...Permutation and Combination.

Permutation is ordering of objects in which ORDER matters. example: phone number

Combination is odering of objects in which ORDER doesn't matter. example: pizza toppings, card hands.

November 13/09

Today we had a work period again to work on the excercise sheets. I am getting better and better with practice. I should start getting a start on my vector project too. My idea right now is to have a hiking trail which you can go five different ways and end up in the same place.

November 12/09

Today we had a work period to work on our Excerise questions. I think I figured out how to work with Euklid and vectors today, which makes me happy!

November 9/09 Vector Project

Today in class we started off with mental math. Mr. Max told us about our Vector Project that we have to have done by November 27th.

The format: negotiable. possibilities include, but not limited to:- essay style (includes diagrams)- Powerpoint/presentation (not presented) - hand in only- Blogger style blog post (on your own blog)- Spreadsheet (including diagrams and interactivity)- Euklid type diagrams embedded in other software

What is included:Project-type stuff:- Title Page- Table of Contents- References (if any)- Discussion (or something like a discussion)- Conclusion- Diagrams, scaled, neat, organized..etc.

What it is about:- Start with a known Resultant vector...(means that youy have a known start and a known finish)

Topics: all 2-D references, from above(top-down), no limit on creativity

Must Include: 5 specifically appropriate, context-based, scenarios that have as their answer, the resultant vector. i.ie.scenario #1 is......, Scenario #2...,etc. Each scenario has to include a minimum of 2 vectors (magnitude and direction scaled and directed for each)

By this Thursday he would like to see a topic from me.

Nov.3rd/09

Today we had no mental math because it was a day two. He showed us how to do scalar problems. 3 and 8 on Exercise 2. It is due on Thursday and I don't really understand this stuff. Maybe by the end of the week it will be alright.

Nov. 2nd/09 NEW UNIT - Vectors

We started a new unit today called Vectors. Vectors are anything with both magnitude and direction. "How Much" and "Which way" are ways to describe vectors.

Measure Directions:
3 Ways:

1) Degrees Direction of Direction

2) Start Direction Degrees Which Way

3) Bearing/Heading
- measures less than 360 degree angles using N=0 degrees, and clockwise.

--------> = a vector because it is going a certain way.
-------- = not a vector because you don't know which direction it's going in.

Oct. 30th/09

Today we didn't do much in math today, we worked on the picnic table question from the Design and Measurement Portfolio.

October 29th/09

We handed in our mental math sheets today, and i had an average of 65% this time. Mental Math is not my strong point, but I'm sure I'll get better as the year goes on. After that, Mr. Max showed us how to do a question from the design and measurement portfolio. It was a driveway problem on page 6 of 6. He used excel to figure it out and showed us how to do it that way.

October 28th/09

Since I forgot to blog for a few days, I thought I'd summarize what we have been doing. We started working on this booklet called the Design and Measurement Portfolio. It has a bunch of different problem solving questions...just my type of questions! NOT. I really dislike these Design and Measurement questions. This will be something that I will need to study and understand for the exam. I am sure it is easier once I understand how to break it all down and do it by steps. Hopefully by the end of this week I'll be able to do these questions and fully understand how to work it out. 1 cubic yard = 27 cubic feet.

Oct. 20th/09

Today we had a "spot check" quiz on Sequences/Series and Personal Finance. Both of those units I don't understand, so I found it quite hard. I went to tutoring at 4 today and Mr.Max did help me understand some questions that I didn't get.

October 19th/09

Well I wasn't here on Friday because I was gone to Winnipeg. I heard there was a quiz type deal that got everyone anxious and worried, and I'm glad I wasn't apart of that. haha. He didn't take it in for marks, so that is good!

Anyways, as for today, Monday, October 19th, we did mental math, and then he gave us a white piece of paper and this was supposed to be our formula sheet. There is an up coming quiz one of these days this week, so we had to make one up and show him before leaving. I really hope its after tutoring tomorrow, I need more time to look over sequences and series and actually understand personal finance.

Oct. 13th/09

Today we went over some practice questions on Personal Finance. I don't really understand this unit. Its hard for me to know what to enter into the calculator and understand what the questions are asking.

Oct. 8th/09

I wasn't in math class today because I had a student council meeting all morning.

Oct. 7th/09

We started a new unit today, which is called Personal Finance. We can use three differnt machines to use to solve these problems. Excel, TVM Solver and Web Applets. I remember learning some of this stuff in grade 11. I remember that I didn't really enjoy it, but maybe I'll get it this year! He is going to give us a practice question to work on tonight and lets hope I can do it.

Oct. 2/09

Today it was a day 2 so we worked on our Sequence and Review questions, they are due for Tuesday.

Oct. 6th/09

Today we had a quiz on Sequence and Series questions. We had to pick two of the questions from the review booklet that he gave us and then hand them in.

Oct. 5th/09

It was post-secondary day today and the people who got sent out were the ones that got to attend. It was nice to get information on different universities and colleges. I plan to go to CMU next year and I hope that it is a great experience for me!

Oct. 1st/09

Today he assigned some questions for us to do from our Sequence and Series review questions. We are to do five of them. I think I might do more because I really don't understand this stuff.

Sept. 30th/09

Today we learned that there are 4 methods to solve Sequences and Series. 1. Calculator 2. Excel 3. Shodor 4. Sequence Mode. I find this unit to be harder then matricies and hopefully I'll be able to understand it.

Sept. 29th/09

Today we began a new unit called "Sequences and Series". There are two parts of sequences and series called Geometric/Arithmetic sequences and Fractal Analysis. This will be a short unit and we will probably only have a quiz for it.

Sept. 28th/09

Today we had a sub and finished the rest of the test. It took me the whole block to finish and I am pretty confident that I got a decent mark.

Sept. 25th/09

Today we had an assembly and Gary Doer annouced that Swan River will be hosting the 2012 power sport games. We then had the choice to write the first half of our test and then write the rest on Monday. I found the test to be easier then I thought it would be. So i guess thats a good thing!

Test Review Sept. 24th/09

Today we went over what would be on the test tomorrow. He divided the things we learned into chunks..the first chunk is Matrix intro, and Matrix Operations - Addition, Subtraction, Scalar and Matrix Multiplication. I will have to review a few questions on matrix multiplication. There is going to be a big chunk of that one the test, so i better get practicing! The next chunk is Transition Matricies. I will have to just remember some of the rules of Transition Matricies and the terms "1 sums" and "loopies". The next was Networks - directed and non-directed. Directed is only a one way street and Non-directed is a two way street. I will have to know the terms "Exactly" and "At Most". Hopefully this test will be alright!

Sept.23/09

Today we corrected one of the questions that were due for homework today, after that we learned Direct Networks. We went through an example question on exercise 8. I sorta understand this, but I will need more practice on it so I plan to look at questions from the previous exams and exercise questions on it. For the test on friday, I will have to review Matrix Multiplication, Transition Matricies, and Direct Networks.

Sept. 22/09

Today we spent most of the class learning Networks (direct and indirect). He showed us how to do all of it by hand, and I was starting to freak out because I wouldn't know how to remember to do all that. Luckily, in the end, he showed us that you could just use a calculator and not have to go all through that. I was a bit relieved. He assigned some questions to practice on and I will be working on them in tutoring today.

Sept. 21/09

Today we corrected two questions from Excerise 6. There is now a link to the provincial standards exams and I think that will help me a lot. I will have to practice some questions from it.

Sept. 17th/09

This class we did some more practicing on Matrix Multiplication. "Just because you can doesn't mean you should."

We did a practice question from Exercise 5, question 3.
It definitely got you thinking and with a little bit more practice I hope I will be able to understand it.

We then had to do question 2 from Exercise 5 and describe how we did it...so here it goes!

The first question asked the weekly production of kitchen and bedroom suites.
It gave you the first matrix
[30 10] [3]
[40 15] [8]
=
[170]
[240]

There were three factories for type A and eight factories for type B. So we had to use
matrix multiplication to find out the weekly production. The answer is 170 kitchens and 240 bedrooms.

It next asked you to find the total market value of the goods purchased.

We took the weekly production and multiplied it by what the kitchen and bedrooms sell for.

[170 240] [1500] = The total value which is $783,000
[2200]

Sept. 16th/09

Today we corrected our Exercise questions and I actually got them all right. There are still some things that I don't understand fully, but I think by next week for the test on Friday that I will be able to understand anything.

Sept. 16th/09

In class today we had a sub and were expected to finish our Exercise questions and do our regular blog post.

Sept. 14th/09

Today we learned about Scalar Multiplication and Matrix Multiplication. The first two Matrices we learned were easier to understand for me, but these two take some thinking, which is not always a bad thing.

We learned about the two-finger method, and I found this method to be quite easy to understand and it helped me with understanding how to do questions that envolve matrix multiplication.

Two-Finger Method:

This method is done by giving a 'thumbs up' with your left hand, than extending your index finger, while your right hand shapes the letter L.

Goal Setting Assignment

Some of the goals I have for myself are as follows: I want to try my best to graduate with Honors, my English and Math provincial exams are in the same semester and I want to try and get above 75 on both of them. I am also going on the Geography Trip and I want to do all the fundraising I can and put all the effort I am able to put in to it. As for job wise, I am not sure what I really want to do yet, but I hope within the year that I realize what I am really interested in. Those are some of the goals for my grade 12 year.