Future Success

My class has been working on a project called Putting a Down Payment On Future Success.This project is important because it helps us have an idea of what to expect in the future and it lets us use math in the real world. For example, we had to look for an apartment on the Internet and look for the monthly rent, we also calculated all of our fixed expenses and saw how much we were able to save in one year. It gave me an idea of what to expect in the future because we had to choose a profession and find out the tuition for how many years you have to go to college. My profession is a Dentist and i had to undergo 4 years of undergrad + 4 years of Dental school. I will also be attending the university of Pennsylvania. Knowing this information, i have an idea of were i want to go for college and how much it may cost when i get there. That's how this project helped me. It also gave me more practice in multiplying decimals and finding percents. The most useful thing i learned while doing this project was that
taxes are when the government takes a certain percent of what a person makes annually for people who are less fortunate. Moreover, this project was very important because it taught me a lot of different thing that i never knew before.

I Won the Lottery!

This project was about how we would use $50,000 in two days without investing it. I really enjoyed this project because i got to imagine what i would buy with all of that money. This project was not all that difficult, the only difficult part was trying to calculate the tax and the extra expenses of buy a car or a pet. If i were to do this project again i would probably only buy one item like a car because that way i wouldn't have to go through a lot of diffrent items and put them in categories and everything.

Back to the Future

This project is about being able to determine how much certain items will cost in 20 years by knowing how much they used to cost 20 years ago and using percent change to be able to find out.This project was not difficult at all because all you had to do was find percent change by first taking the original price and the current price, then subtracting the original price from the current price and calculating the percentage that it increased then with that, we predict how much it will cost in 20 years by using that percent. If i was to do this project again something i would do differently would be to use cheaper items.

The Day Before The Event.

I feel confident about the Math Exam tomorrow and Wednesday because I am prepared for it. I have prepared by coming to school everyday and doing all of the review worksheets that my teacher gives me. My opinion about 8Th grade in general is that it is a wrap-up of everything we have learned in the past 3 years. From 6Th grade to this year. Some activities that I would like Ms.Pulphus to plan after the test would be like project where you had to do a variety of things and then in the end put it all together and present it. I think that I am prepared for high school because I have great teachers who teach me a lot. Some areas I need to improve in order to have a successful school year is to come prepared for school more often (pencils, paper etc.). 3 academic goals that i would like to accomplish by June24Th would be 1. To get a good average on the last marking period, 2. To have perfect attendance and 3. To make my parents and my teacher proud of me.

8th Grade State Math Test

I am ready to take the test next month. I have been preparing by studying my notes that i take every day, and by doing my homework every night. I don't think that i need help on any of the strands that we have worked on because i have been focused in class and i understand them pretty well. It is important to come to school daily because everyday we learn something new. For example, in one day we could write 3 pages of notes and work on 5 worksheets, and with all of that work we learn alot. Also everyday we will learn something that we didn't know before and it feels good to learn something new because it makes you feel accomplished.

Transformations - Rotations

We turn our papers when drawing rotation to predict where and how the rotation will turn out. This is because when you turn the paper, the original figure will be in the same position that the rotated figure will be. A rotated figure does not change in size, shape, or location. A rotated figure differs from a reflection because a reflection is when you make a figure on the opposite side of a line of symmetry. And a rotation is when you rotate a figure around a center point. If you rotate a figure 90 degrees clockwise and then 90 degrees counterclockwise, it will end up in the same position that it started. The same thing will happen if you rotate the figure 360 degrees counterclockwise, the only difference is that it will be upside down. The difference between rotating a figure clockwise or counter clock wise is that counterclockwise goes in the opposite direction.

Transformations - Reflections

A reflection is like a mirror image because in a reflection, the size nor the shape changes, only the position. You could reflect an image over the x-axis or y-axis without knowing the exact rules by using equidistant, which means that the reflected figure has to be the equal distance from the x or y-axis as the original figure. The original figure and it's reflection are exactly the same distance from the line of symmetry so that the figures will stay the same.We could determine the line of symmetry if we are given the points of the original figure and the image, all we would have to do is take the space between them and divide it in half, and that's were the line of symmetry would go. When looking at two figures, we know which one is the transformation because the transformation has an apostrophe over the top, for example, the points on the original figure would be labeld A, B, and C and the transformation would be A', B', and C'.

Transformations - Dilation's

A dilated figure does not change in shape or location, however it does change in size. It will either get larger or smaller. When we zoom into a photo, it gets bigger and that does relate to dilation because the figure can get larger. If a figure undergoes dilation with a scale factor of 1.5 the figure will get bigger, and if the scale factor is 0.5, the figure will get smaller because when the scale factor is greater than 1, the figure gets larger and when the scale factor is less than 1, the figure will get smaller. Dilation differ from translations because translation is when you slide the figure to a different location and for dilation, the figure will either get smaller or larger. Moreover in all dilation's, the origin will be the center. Multiplying 1/3 is the same as dividing by 3 because if u divide the number by three then u get the same as if you were to multiply. For example, 1/3 x 6 = 2 and 6 divided by 2 = 3.

Transformations - Translations

When looking at two figures, you know which one is the transformation because the one who is that transformation has an apostrophe sign. For example, M is the original and M' is the transformation. The new points are called prime (which is what the apostrophe stands for). Another word that you can use to describe a translation is sliding. A translated figure will never change shape because translating means to slide a figure up, down and across any number of units. You can translate a figure without using a coordinate plane by seeing on how many units you have to slide the figure. For example, if you have to translate a figure 5 units to the right and the original figure is on the points, (5,3) you will have to add 5+5 because when your sliding it to the right, you are moving it on the x-axis and the x-axis is the first number, which in this case is 5 because u started with (5,3). In other words, you can translate a figure by finding out if your going to slide it on the x-axis or the y-axis, if you going to the left u will be subtracting from the x-axis and if u go to the right, you will be adding it. And if you go up on the y-axis, you will add and if u go down, you will subtract.