Mathsational

This is week four of the Sunday Funday blogging initiative.  It's never too late to join in!  You can read more about the challenge  here  if you like.  This week's challenge is to write about organization. Organization: Well, seeing as how I'm posting this entry several hours past the deadline, I certainly could use some organization pointers for sure.  However, I do have a few pointers. Do everything digitally if possible.  My students will have 1-1 iPads before the start of the second marking period.  Until then, I'll continue to use my class cart of laptops.  I am fortunate enough to have those as part of a grant that I signed-up for circa 2007.  The machines were updated one time in those 10 years, so the technology available is anything but cutting edge, but it is functional. The reason I love organizing digitally is that it is easier for me to make lots of folders inside of other folders and to move/update things as needed. ...

This is week three of the Sunday Funday blogging initiative.  It's never too late to join in!  You can read more about the challenge  here  if you like.  This week's challenge is to write about classroom management. I'm about to start my 14th year in the classroom and classroom management is something that I still strive to improve.  When I first started teaching I felt the need to have lots of rules and procedures along with consequences, all in writing.  My go to resources were Harry Wong's The First Days of School  and Lee Canter's Assertive Discipline .   Both books have some great ideas for new teachers, but you need to wade through other ideas that won't work for you to find the ones that will.  I even took Sarah Carter's idea of using a few of Harry's quotes to put up in my room.  Unfortunately, my kids just laughed at his name :(  Within a few years, I found that the many rules and consequences were ...

This is week two of the Sunday Funday blogging initiative.  It's never too late to join in!  You can read more about the challenge here if you like. Last week, we wrote about our goals for the year .  I touched on my first day plans at that time, but here is a bit more info. I mentioned in the last Sunday Funday post that I wanted to begin incorporating HyperDocs as a way for students to be engaged in independent work while pull daily small groups.  Here is the HyperDoc that I'll use on the first day of school for my students to get to know me and each other. I got the idea for the Meet me by Slides activity from one of Alice Keeler's books.  I read all three this summer, back-to-back.  So I'm having trouble recall which book it was. They were all good by the way. Even though I don't intend on using Google Classroom and will only have student access to iPads for the most part, I was still able to get a ton of ideas from these thr...

I previously wrote about using the card game WAR as a wad to practice math skills.  Rather than using a standard deck of cards, simply make your own cards containing questions that have numerical solutions, then play as usual.  You can read the original post for more details.  In that post, I shared two versions of the game. One for exponent rules and one for evaluating logarithms . Here are a few more versions that you can use.  Be sure to share if you create any of your own :) Kindergarten - Numbers to 20 WAR Grade 4 - Milligrams, Grams, Kilograms WAR Grade 6 - One Step Equations WAR Algebra 1 - LCM & GCF WAR Algebra 2 - Powers of e WAR

Last summer I wrote about using the card game "Old Maid" as a way to practice math skills.  Rather than looking for two of the same card, you are looking for a matching question and answer.  You can read the original post here for more information if you'd like.  At that time I included a download for a version of the game for writing a system of equations from a word problem . Here are some new versions that you can use as well.  Feel free to create your own and share as well :) Grade 1: Adding Two Digits Numbers Grade 8: Solving Equations Using Square and Cube Roots Geometry: Congruence Properties

Goals, I have too many right now.  This Sunday Funday prompt comes at the perfect time for me to solidify them and hone in on just a few so that I can reach those goals. My big aspirations for the year include tweaking my past standard based grading policies and well as blended/hybrid learning structure. I also want to begin to incorporate HyperDocs, visual random grouping, vertical non-permanent surfaces.  Finally, I'd like to include more projects and technology in my classroom.  And this is the narrowed down list! First, I'll start with HyperDocs.  I came across this book  The HyperDoc Handbook: Digital Lesson Design Using Google Apps  in my efforts to reorganize my blended/hybrid format and to include more meaningful technology.  The idea of HyperDoc is to create an interactive student-paced lesson.  One of the issues I've had in the past few years has been getting my students to engage at the independent station with fidelity.  ...

Color by number has long been one of my favorite ways for students to practice math concepts.  Even my high school kids enjoy the break from less fun forms of practice.  I wrote about using color by numbers for math practice here in this original post . In that post I shared two practice sheets.  The first was for factoring quadratic form trinomials and the second was for finding areas of regular polygons . Since then, I've found a page with a ton of color by number activities for grades k-5.   Coloring Squared  has tons of pictures, all pixelated, so they are extra fun :)  Here are two examples from their site. Grade 3: Multiplication and Division Problems With an Unknown Grade 5: Multiplying Fractions Finally, here are a few more sheets that I created.  Feel free to use them and share any that you make :) Two Tangents From a Point 3 x 3 Systems Multiplying Rational Expressions

Last summer I wrote about using error analysis as one of my favorite ways to practice math skills.  Since then I've found a few more resources and created a few more that I'd like to share.  In general, error analysis activities involve purposefully making common mistakes, then having students try to find them.  Here is a link to the original post if you'd like to see it.  In that post I shared an example for the segment addition postulate and midpoint as well as a second example for multiplying polynomials . Here are some other examples that I found.  I did not create these. Grade 2: Adding and Subtracting up to 3 digits. Grade 8: Solve Linear Equations. Algebra 1: Graphing Linear Inequalities in two Variables

I previously wrote about a game called My Ship Sails that can be used for practicing math content.  It is a card sort style game where players pass cards in attempt to collect all of a certain type card.  You can read more about the game here in the original post .  In that first post, I shared two sample games.  The first game was about end behavior of polynomials and the second game was about conditional statements . Here are two new games.  If you try the game or make a new version, I'd love to hear about it. Grade 1: Coins Grade 7: Angle Pairs