To: 7th & 8th Grade Parents:

pw: sjaisthebest

From: Mrs. Scirocco & Mrs. Luciano

Re: IXL.com computer program

As part of our ongoing commitment to quality education, St. John’s Academy implemented a school-wide license for the online math program IXL.com in September 2013. The program was has proved a success in improving student’s math scores school-wide.

It is a widely held belief that students perform better in Math if there is no long gap in practice. IXL allows for unlimited practice problems that students can access during the summer and is very user friendly. Parents can also log onto the website to view various reports to track their child’s progress.

Incoming 7th and 8th grade students will be given 10 assignments that reinforce past concepts and must be completed by the first day of school in September. Students may also use the program for additional practice to help them get ready for the new school year. All work is done online, however, they may need to use scrap paper and pencil to complete some of the problems. Teachers will be able to track their summer usage and progress.

Students already have their username and password. They must work for 30 minutes on each skill. Teachers can monitor how many problems are completed in the 30 minutes and it must be reasonable. Completing all 10 assignments will earn them a 100% quiz grade. What a great way to start off the new school year!

If you have any questions, or are new to the school and need a username, please contact Mrs. Scirocco at .

To view the skills assigned, please login to IXL.com using the SJA login: https://www.ixl.com/signin/sja. Incoming 7th graders will be assigned 6th grade skills and incoming 8th graders will be assigned 7th grade skills. The assigned skills will be highlighted on the page for your grade. Sometimes IXL updates the skills during the summer. As long as you complete the highlighted skills your score will be recorded correctly. PLEASE USE THE “ANALYTICS” REPORT IN IXL TO FOLLOW YOUR PROGRESS. Be sure to enter the start date of 6/20. Teachers will check the assignments between 6/20 and 9/7.

** 8th grade Challenge: If you complete the following 5 skills with a SmartScore of 100% you will receive 5 points extra on your first quiz. This is mostly geometry so use all your resources – Khan Academy, mathhelp.com, google, parents and siblings. YOU CAN DO IT!

AA.9 – Perimeter, Area & Volume – Changes in Scale

AA.10 – SemiCircles: area, perimeter, radius and diameter

AA.12 - Area of compound figures with triangles, semicircles & quarter circles

AA.13 – Area between two shapes

CC.3 – Mean, median, mode and range – find the missing number