Things to ask your 7th grader

What is the length of the side of a square whose area is 5? The square root of 5.

How many degrees are in the three angles of a triangle? 180 How many degrees are in each of the angles of an equilateral triangle? 60 ...

When counting by powers of ten, a new family starts every multiple of 3. 10^3 is the start of the thousands family, 10^6 is the start of...

How much less is the product of two numbers that are one more and one less than a perfect square? For example, how much less is...

After practicing the squares of the multiples of 10, 10x10, 20x20, etc., next look at the squares that are one bigger: 11x11, 21x21, etc....

Ask your student how many perfect squares are less than 10,000. (note: 100*100 = 10,000, so 1 squared up to 99 squared must be less than...

When drawing an inequality, what is the difference between the hollow and a solid dot?

Ask your 7th grader to tell you a story in which the value of a variable is negative. The story we were telling today is of the box of...

What is the best first move with the equation 10-4x = 2x+3 ? Many students will choose to subtract 2x from both sides. But then you...

If half of x equals 10, what does x equal? 20 If one third of x equals 10, what does x equal? 30 If two thirds of x equals 10, what does...

7th graders started working on this recently. 8th graders began the year with this. The story is you order candy to be delivered. Candy...

When is something proportional? This is a little more complicated than it seems. I get paid $10/hr for babysitting. The amount of money...

7th graders are reviewing commutative and associative properties. Commutative property is that you can change the order of the terms...

Ask your 8th grader for an example of less than vs an example of less than or equal to. For example, if you give your child $5 to spend,...

Ask your 7th or 8th grader what the difference is between an expression and an equation. An example of an expression would be 8p + 4g...

You notice that the temperature has been going down three degrees per hour. Currently the temperature is zero degrees. What calculation...

Ask your student why a negative number times a negative number equals a positive number. For example, why does -2 -5 = +10 ? 7th...

Ask your 7th/8th grader what they multiply by to have 10% growth. An easy number to start with is 100. Then ask them what they would do...

You run a campaign to increase the number of members in your club. You go from 100 members to 200 members. What was the percent...

Yesterday we asked everyone to work on this problem: After some coaxing the students set up the ratio And they figure out that at 5%, if...