Math Mammoth Grade 8-B Worktext, Canadian version is the student book for the second half of grade 8, and part of the Math Mammoth Grade 8 complete curriculum. Please note: The worktext does not include the answer key. The answer keys for grade 8 are sold as a separate book.
The curriculum is essentially the same as the U.S. version of Math Mammoth Grade 8, only customized for the Canadian audience in these aspects:
- The curriculum uses the metric measurement units. Since Canadians do use some imperial units (e.g. miles, pounds) in some contexts, the curriculum does infrequently use them.
- The spelling conforms mostly to American English, taking into account a few key differences where Canadian English follows British English.
- Numbers are formatted with a space as a thousands separator, and a point as a decimal separator.
- Page (paper) size is Letter.
The US version of the curriculum is aligned to the Common Core Standards, which means this curriculum may not be properly aligned to the eighth grade standards in your province. However, you can probably find material for any missing topics in neighbouring grades.
The book starts with chapter 5, graphing linear equations. Students study slope, and graph and write linear equations in slope-intercept and standard forms. They also learn about parallel and perpendicular lines.
In chapter 6, students delve into square roots, cube roots, and irrational numbers and solve equations involving square and cube roots. The rest of the chapter is spent studying the Pythagorean Theorem and its applications.
Next, in chapter 7, we focus on systems of linear equations. Students learn the three basic techniques for solving these and also solve a variety of problems that are solved with a pair of linear equations. The last chapter covers statistical topics: scatter plots and two-way tables.
Features
- Math Mammoth focuses on conceptual understanding. It explains the "WHY", so students can understand the math, not just learn "HOW" to do it.
- The curriculum is mastery-oriented. This means it concentrates fairly long on a topic, delving into its various aspects. This promotes conceptual understanding, as opposed to spiral curricula that often tend to jump from topic to topic too much.
- It requires very little teacher preparation. :)
- The curriculum has no separate teacher's manual nor is it scripted. The introduction to each chapter has some notes for the teacher concerning the material in the chapter. All the instruction is written directly to the student in the worktext.
- Each chapter introduction also includes a list of Internet links and resources (games, quizzes, animations, etc.) that can be used for fun, illustrations, and further practice.
