OH YEAH, HOMECOMING, YEAH!

Homecoming week was full of fun, and Calc this week wasn't bad at all! The Chapter 2 test we took over limits was pretty good for me. Not my best, but not as bad as I've had in past math classes! I do well with limits but for some reason I can never remember how to write the domain and range when it comes time to take the test. It's quite frustrating when I know I know it but my mind just quits working on me. But oh well, I can live with the grade I have, it wasn't bad at all.

Besides the test, we started Chapter 3 which is all about derivatives. Basically, from the packet we've done, I can tell you some things about derivatives: 1) A derivative is the value at any single point at any given time and values can vary greatly from point to point and 2) It is not possible to find an exact value without enough information, but an assumption is possible.

This week wasn't so bad! But next week I'm not so sure about. Derivatives don't sound fun, so hopefully Mr. Cresswell can make me think otherwise of derivatives maybe?

I thought this shirt was a little funny so I'm sharing it with you!

I feel as though I don't have a ton to write about this week. Limits are just that, limits. I understand them quite well in my opinion. I used to have so much trouble with them last year and now that's not the case. Maybe I have matured in my math skills since last year? I don't know.

I do have trouble working with piecewise functions though. Not reading the graphs necessarily, but actually having to draw them myself and read information from them. I usually just graph it wrong and then I get the whole problem wrong. There's just something about piecewise functions that I can't get and I have no idea why.

Other than the piecewise functions, nothing really gives me trouble. I learned that I'm actually fairly good at limits and have retained a lot of information from this chapter while doing the review activity we did in class. I really liked that a lot. It helped me to question other people and see how they are figuring out a problem and compare it to how I figured it out. I have been used to just doing a review assignment by myself and taking the test, it's pretty neat to be able to collaborate with others and try to get a better understanding of how others approach the same problem as me.

Our Cresswell Confidence Conversations have been helping me a lot! Before the conversation, you could have asked me to try and do the problems in the picture and I would've been totally lost. I now understand how to do problems like that! Oh, and I also liked the Ted Talk Tuesday. We always hear about infinity, but I know I've never grasped just how many numbers that could be. And to find the biggest prime number of all the numbers there are is just very interesting!

This week seemed like it flew by. It really seemed like we didn't do much this week but really, we did.

Monday we finished going over our packets and took a test on the things we reviewed. I thought that the packets were very helpful because instead of just having a crash course in review things, we got to figure out the problems in the packet by ourselves and we used each other and Mr. Cresswell as resources to help us understand something we couldn't quite remember.

I really don't remember what we did Tuesday... I really hope it wasn't important!

Wednesday, I wasn't in class due to having a golf match in Frankenmuth. Honestly, I golfed terribly so I would've rather been sitting in school all day. I know that the class worked on our first lab that talked about Limits though.

Thursday, we had a fire drill in the beginning of the hour which I know threw Mr. Cresswell off on trying to get all of our notes for the day in, but we got really close to getting it all done. I got the lab this day and I finished it in class so I'm glad that it was easy! We took notes on limits and got our homework assignment for the night which I got almost all done just in class. I feel like I understand limits fairly well so it was pretty easy for me.

Friday, we did our first confidence discussion! I liked it a lot because other students could explain how they completed a problem in a way I could completely understand. Grace, Max, and Mitchell were kind enough to share one of the problems they got correct with the class (see picture). I even helped a few people with a problem they didn't understand and I did. It felt good to help others like other people helped me. We took more notes on Limits Approaching Inifinity and again, I understood that fairly well! We also learned that Mr. Cresswell es muy bueno en gable Español. So that was pretty neat! This week was definitely a good one!

As I was walking into second hour on Tuesday morning, I was a little nervous. When I got into class I was glad to see a lot of my friends and I relaxed. We all sat down and waited for class to begin.

We watched the video announcement and then Mr. Cresswell began talking very, very fast. I don't blame him though, a six page syllabus is hard to cover at a normal pace in seventy-two minutes! I was very intrigued when he talked about using Weebly and Edmodo because that wasn't very normal for a math class. I was even more intrigued when he said that our homework wouldn't always just be book work, but it would include things like watching videos too. I also think his idea of using the "Board-zilla"'s to work through problems that a majority of the class doesn't understand is a great idea. I am a hands-on type of learner so I believe that will help understand a lot more.

Starting to work on that review packet made me realize I need to brush up on my math skills and remember the things I learned last year, but I know once I can remember all that then I'll be alright. I started really concentrating on that packet today (Friday) and I realized it really wasn't that hard, I was just making it seem harder than it really was. When the group I was working on this packet with had questions, Mr. Cresswell was a great help, he pointed us in the right direction instead of just telling us the answers and I really like that.

My first week in AP Calc has been a good one, and I can't wait to see what the rest of the school year brings!