Math
Ethan Merlin
Middle School Math and Curriculum Coordinator and Middle School Math Teacher, Middle School Math Chair
Our mission, as Middle School math educators, is to prepare every student in our division to thrive, with confidence, in high school and college math courses. We inspire students to love and appreciate math for its beauty and utility, while, at the same time, equipping them with the skills they will need to deeply access advanced concepts and applications in future studies.
Core Skills
- Fluency in operations with different sets of numbers, including integers, fractions, decimals, and percents
- Understanding sets of numbers and the relationships between these sets
- Working fluently with numerical and algebraic expressions and equations: simplifying, solving, factoring, and graphing
- Categorizing, measuring, and computing the perimeter, area, and volume of polygons, circles, and three-dimensional solids
- Taking risks; discussing and analyzing mistakes
Themes of the Curriculum
Math 6:
Topics covered include: Whole numbers, decimals, and integers; Factors, multiples, and fractions, ratios, rates, and percents; types of angles, names of shapes, area and volume; Expressions and equations
Math 7:
Topics covered include: Integer operations, evaluating expressions, solving equations, ratios, proportions, geometric measurements.
Algebra I:
Topics covered include: Reducing sophisticated problems to those that have been previously solved, recognizing and discussing common mistakes, mastery of linear relationships, including simple, compound and linear inequalities and their graphs, solving word problems in one and two variables, identifying, simplifying and performing operations on polynomials, rational and radical expressions, identifying, producing and utilizing factored forms of expressions, and solving linear, radical and quadratics equations and systems of linear equations and inequalities.
Geometry ADV:
Topics covered include: Measurement of angles and segments, properties of polygons and polyhedra, congruence and similarity, parallel lines, circles, perimeter, area, and volume and a brief introduction to trigonometry
* Geometry ADV is a high school course offered to select students in 8th grade