On Friday, I'm doing two labs. This past week, the kids worked on conversion and significant figures worksheets. Lacie is going to be absent this Friday; I had an opportunity to see which issues arose with metric conversions. (My husband and I home-school Lacie; she comes over three days a week for Chemistry and her lessons.) Happily, significant figures seems clear. Metric prefixes and the unit factor method of conversions is not clear. After a few trials, she completed all four worksheets. I insist on using the unit factor method with scientific notation and correct units. In class, the kids seemed to understand significant figures and scientific notation. Metric conversions are muddier. Tuesday, we reviewed metric prefixes. The quiz Friday is a diagnostic. Tomorrow, two other kids are coming to either make up missing work, retake a test, or work on metric conversions. Can they convert units? I'll know Friday.
BTW, kids find conversions to be difficult. Don't despair if your child struggles. Practice! Dr. Wile has clear explanations in the textbook. In my experience, kids need loads of practice. Encourage your child to use the unit factor method and change numbers into scientific notation before solving the problem. Frequently, the answer is easy if the problem is set up, the units are cancelled, and the numbers are in scientific notation. Really.
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