Mathsational

The next practice structure that I'd like to share is Slap It!  This is a variation of Slap Jack.  This activity works best for practicing skills where there are a limited number of responses.  I've created a version for identifying the center and radius of a circle from an equation and a version for identifying the sine, cosine, and tangent of angles.  I think this would also be a good way to practice evaluating simple logarithms or specific values on the unit circle.  I'd love to hear what you would do with this idea.  Please share any variations that you try. Here are the rules for Slap Jack provided by Bicycle Cards : Object of the Game:  The goal is to win all the cards, by being first to slap each jack as it is played to the center. The Deal:  Deal cards one at a time face down, to each player until all the cards have been dealt. The hands do not have to come out even. Without looking at any of the cards, each player square...

This past summer, I started writing a series of posts about practice structure that I use in my classroom.  These structures are meant to take the place of worksheets.  Worksheets can be a great opportunity to practice skills and build fluency, but they are deathly boring. Here are some of my past posts on this topic: Chains Tarsia Puzzles Board Games My Ship Sails Error Analysis Color By Number Old Maid Today I'm writing about another practice structure that I like to use, Go Fish! Go fish works well for problems that are relatively quickly solved.  I have kids deal the cards and solve the problems in their hands before starting.  Then they ask something like "Do you have the pyramid with a volume of 24 cubic centimeters?"  or "Do you have the solution 24 cubic centimeters." Like many of the other children's games that I use in my class, students really like this activity.  There is a nostalgic feeling for them and they genuinely end up ...

This year I've taken the #teach180 twitter challenge.  The goal is to tweet one picture from your classroom each day.  I'm also blogging bi-weekly about those tweets/activities. Day 41:  Today was a quiz day.  I give cumulative quizzes on every 5th day of class as part of standards based grading/teaching/learning.  This response made me particularly happy.  I learned about CPM's Giant 1 a few weeks ago.  I used it this year to teach simplifying radical expressions and students picked up the idea faster than ever! So close. Glad I learned about the CPM great big giant 1. #teach180 #alg2chat pic.twitter.com/oHFfY2OBrI — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) October 27, 2016 Day 42:  Today in geometry we practiced triangle proofs again.  This will probably be never ending with  frequent revisits all semester.  Proofs are something that my students find 1) boring and 2) difficult.  Any one with solutions to those problems, I'm ...

This year I've taken the #teach180 challenge.  The challenge is to tweet at least one picture from your classroom each day of class.  I'm also putting those tweets together into blog posts every other week and adding links to resources so that others can use and modify the activities if they like.  This has been a great experience so far.  It has given me the chance to reflect on my work more frequently. Day 31:  Today my algebra 2 students practiced factoring by grouping by solving a tarsia puzzle.  I wrote about tarsia puzzles here and here is a link to the activity.  You will need to download the tarsia software before opening the document. Today in #alg2chat we practiced factoring by grouping with a tarsia puzzle #teach180 pic.twitter.com/aNxDUlUunw — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) October 14, 2016 Day 32:  Algebra 2 students practiced factoring trinomials in quadratic from today though a color by number activity.  I wrote abo...