Human Ordered Pairs!

We have been learning about the Cartesian Coordinate Plane recently! If you remember this post , we've finally reached this section of math. I purchased A Fly on the Ceiling from amazon sometime last week to prepare for this new topic. Thanks to previous experience with read alouds for kindergarteners and 1st graders, the kids were really engaged with the story. After spending a little time modeling how to find an ordered pair, everyone wanted to try! They had a blast.

While some kids were too cool for school, most of the students did some plotting and had fun with the activity. I gave them post-its with ordered pairs to plot. Most of the classes are working on quadrants now.

Human Ordering Integers!

We have been working very hard lately on unit 3. This unit is about children beginning to understand negative and positive numbers as well as the contexts in which they play a role in the real world. Here is a short clip of one of the fun activities we've been doing recently in class (I must admit, even I've had a blast playing with the kids)!

Instead of having students order integers on a sheet of paper or on a worksheet, just grab a few index cards, think of your students and decide what integers/numbers you want them to order! This is really good for seeing where students are. Positive integers > positive decimals > positive fractions > negative integers > negative decimals > negative fractions. I've found that my students are good until we toss in those nasty decimals and fractions. Practice makes perfect. Eventually they get it, and this is fun for all! 

Mr. E's Mathemagicians

After spending a lot of time thinking I've finally figured out the keystones to my new program, the "Mathemagicians". Mentioned in the previous post, here is the wheel:

How it works

• The wheel will be based on 1 topic at a time
• The question difficulty will increase as students go around the wheel
• I'll start with multiple choice questions in order to check papers quickly w/ an answer key
• Each assignment is worth 500 points
• Must score 90% or higher in order to move to the next section on the wheel (at discretion)
• You can only move on by completing the work on your OWN. This does not mean that students who need help won't receive it, but in order to move along the wheel you must have completed an assignment with 90% accuracy by yourself. This is why there are 2 version of each assignment! Perhaps a student will spend their first time learning and making mistakes and practicing on version 1 of an assignment. Version 2 of an assignment can then be completed independently.
• You obtain a prize whenever you go around the wheel. There is no time limit for going around the wheel.
• When you go around the wheel, you start from the beginning of the wheel on the next topic.

Other
- Takes place during Monday and Tuesday lunch period (2 times per week, 8 times per month)
- Students can complete the wheel in 1 month for a particular topic.
- There are a total of 8 assignments per topic and 2 versions of each assignment
- If a student finishes early, they can help other students or complete version 2 of their assignment (not awarded additional points)
- If a student does not complete their assignment in that period, they can just store it in their folder and complete it the next day.
- Bulletin with rankings for the top 5 students that have the most points


Prizes
- Similar to the Gold Wii U prize, students can play PS3 during lunch time only (Wednesday)
- AMC Gold Experience Movie ticket or Regal Premier movie ticket
- $15 Barnes & Nobles gift card

Welcome to 2015! Happy New Year!

I am wishing all of my students, parents, staff, co workers, family and friends a wonderful and blessed new year! I have learned so much in 2014. I grew a lot personally towards the end of the year, I became a far better teacher, and I accomplished one of the biggest goals of my life.

I sincerely hope that 2015 will make us even more refined, give us more than what we started with, and help us grow in all areas of our lives!

I have plenty of things that I want to finish and start this year, but the ones related to teaching are:

A) Starting up my lunch program to help/offer students become more proficient
B) More signs around the room for students to refer to
C) Continue to be consistent
D) More opportunities for students to practice practice practice


1st post of 2015!