Courtesy of the Social Studies teacher for giving me the brilliant idea of creating custom dollars instead (really, I thought of this but I can be far too stubborn sometimes). I have created:
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Introducing: The Official VSC Math Tokens
I came up short spending a lot of time trying to find a site that will sell me personalized/engraved coins for my reward system. I needed Gold/Silver/Bronze coins that I'd keep in a treasure box that students would redeem later in the week. Unfortunately it's simply too expensive in addition to being a process that takes plenty of time (meaning I would have to push back the start date for my rewards by perhaps a month).
Courtesy of the Social Studies teacher for giving me the brilliant idea of creating custom dollars instead (really, I thought of this but I can be far too stubborn sometimes). I have created:
Courtesy of the Social Studies teacher for giving me the brilliant idea of creating custom dollars instead (really, I thought of this but I can be far too stubborn sometimes). I have created:
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Welcome to Unit Rates/Price, Ratios and Proportions
While I haven't gotten into content yet, I've started to work on Unit 1 already and have been thinking about some activities (of course, ones that involve movement), that will likely be the first spotting of the kids on this blog. Going along with my battle (possibly career-long battle) to build student motivation, I decided to use introductory videos that showcase their teachers in the real world, showing the application of the unit/concepts being discussed. I will also create a "Why is Math Important?" video.
Students are familiar with Target even if it's not in their community, and helping their teachers find out which fruit has the cheaper unit price might be plenty interesting and motivating to some of them. There is an element of relevancy, prior knowledge, novelty, and entertainment that comes in making these types of videos. Students in 7th grade that I no longer have are familiar with me, so I'm sure they'll enjoy it. I look terrible!
Students are familiar with Target even if it's not in their community, and helping their teachers find out which fruit has the cheaper unit price might be plenty interesting and motivating to some of them. There is an element of relevancy, prior knowledge, novelty, and entertainment that comes in making these types of videos. Students in 7th grade that I no longer have are familiar with me, so I'm sure they'll enjoy it. I look terrible!
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
The First Day of School
Last year, I was at a big disadvantage by coming in during the middle of the year as a blank slate with no time to set rules and expectations. Half of August has been dedicated to helpful and necessary PD's that I participated in for the first time along with our new staff. We have also done an immense amount of planning. There is simply no substitute for the large amount of planning that we have all been doing. After August, it was clear to me that given the circumstances, I did the best I could.
September 4, 2014 will be my own first "first day" of school as a teacher! I have never gotten a chance to start the year fresh with students until now. Trying to build a community (or do anything rather) from the ground up is extremely difficult work. I have shifted some of my focus to getting the new students on board with VSC values. I have also aligned the procedures of my classroom along with the VSC values. This is a fancy way of saying I want to get the students to recognize the specific ways VSC values apply to my class. If they can understand why responsibility, effort and collaboration are important to achieve our goals and build a positive classroom culture/community, then we have taken an important step in building a productive work environment.
I want to act out plenty of scenarios along with the students so we can see why certain behaviors do not help us achieve our goals or build our community. We will go over the questions on Building Our Community after acting out some scenarios that correspond to each question. Students can share what they will be doing to help build our lovely environment. Day one homework consists of a student survey with questions that I will use to create groups. Day 2 is a review of day 1, getting to know all about the students and having them learn about each other, plus laptop procedures. Hoping that this will suffice.
September 4, 2014 will be my own first "first day" of school as a teacher! I have never gotten a chance to start the year fresh with students until now. Trying to build a community (or do anything rather) from the ground up is extremely difficult work. I have shifted some of my focus to getting the new students on board with VSC values. I have also aligned the procedures of my classroom along with the VSC values. This is a fancy way of saying I want to get the students to recognize the specific ways VSC values apply to my class. If they can understand why responsibility, effort and collaboration are important to achieve our goals and build a positive classroom culture/community, then we have taken an important step in building a productive work environment.
I want to act out plenty of scenarios along with the students so we can see why certain behaviors do not help us achieve our goals or build our community. We will go over the questions on Building Our Community after acting out some scenarios that correspond to each question. Students can share what they will be doing to help build our lovely environment. Day one homework consists of a student survey with questions that I will use to create groups. Day 2 is a review of day 1, getting to know all about the students and having them learn about each other, plus laptop procedures. Hoping that this will suffice.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
A Mathematician's Wish
Perhaps the biggest thing I wish I could do right now is create small posters for each of the MP standards and hang them around my room. What I want to do is break each one down into kid-friendly language so students can actually understand what they mean. This way, the students and I can refer to them before, during, or after each lesson and recap which, when, and how they were used.
Problem: I am completely clueless when it comes to things like this and I haven't the first clue of how or where to get something like this done. I am terrible at decorating or making things look nice (unless it's on a computer). When I actually do have materials, I try way too hard and end up epically failing anyway. I almost ruined my room with acrylic paint last week.
Lost cause? I have some small poster paper in my room that I'll try to use tomorrow and see what happens.
Problem: I am completely clueless when it comes to things like this and I haven't the first clue of how or where to get something like this done. I am terrible at decorating or making things look nice (unless it's on a computer). When I actually do have materials, I try way too hard and end up epically failing anyway. I almost ruined my room with acrylic paint last week.
Lost cause? I have some small poster paper in my room that I'll try to use tomorrow and see what happens.
Concept Constructions....
What's that you say? A CARD???? Yes. It's a card. No, not Magic. No, not Yu-Gi-Oh. These severely underrated (by me) gems went underused by me last year. However, they are great for movement as students can get out of their seats and come up to the board to demonstrate what their particular card has to do with the problem at hand.
Last year, I was the one to use these cards. This year, it will be the kids using these cards. My idea is to creative a positive aura surrounding the cards. That is, if you are selected or given one, it's an honor, or a good thing because you've adhered to school norms and positive behavior. Using these to positively reinforce good behavior isn't too shabby.
This year I'll create a word bank and hope that students can associate and become familiar with particular words that correspond to the current unit. I have also been thinking about a "skills & strategies bank". I'm not completely sure about it yet but the word bank will definitely exist. The following is a visual of what I'm talking about:
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"Graph" and "table" are in the middle because they are both mathematical terms that show in up 6.RP (perhaps not so much linear and non-linear graphs, but definitely ratio tables), and they are both "strategies" (well, creating some sort of drawing or representation of the problem at hand is). Not sure if I should just have a word bank or have both...
Last year, I was the one to use these cards. This year, it will be the kids using these cards. My idea is to creative a positive aura surrounding the cards. That is, if you are selected or given one, it's an honor, or a good thing because you've adhered to school norms and positive behavior. Using these to positively reinforce good behavior isn't too shabby.
This year I'll create a word bank and hope that students can associate and become familiar with particular words that correspond to the current unit. I have also been thinking about a "skills & strategies bank". I'm not completely sure about it yet but the word bank will definitely exist. The following is a visual of what I'm talking about:
"Graph" and "table" are in the middle because they are both mathematical terms that show in up 6.RP (perhaps not so much linear and non-linear graphs, but definitely ratio tables), and they are both "strategies" (well, creating some sort of drawing or representation of the problem at hand is). Not sure if I should just have a word bank or have both...
Sunday, August 24, 2014
The Cartesian Coordinate Plane
Last school year I was completely unaware of how important movement and space can be when
creating a lesson or setting up a classroom. This time around, I'll
look for windows of opportunity where I can have students move and
learn at the same time.
I have finally finished creating an actual coordinate plane that the students can use to act out finding/graphing ordered pairs. I learned how to make this from a PD given by some speakers from the New York City Mathematics Project (NYCMP) I attended at the Frederick Douglass Academy in the city. I have been working on this for 3 days. I highly recommend creating this with someone, as creating it alone is quite tedious and takes lots of time.
I used duct tape and a shower curtain. Using simple colors (i.e. black) is also a great idea, as I spent half of the weekend running around to find the same lime green duct tape I used to create the first set of grid lines (after I ran out..). The "squares" are 4.5 x 5 inches. I hope the kids will be excited to use it!
I have finally finished creating an actual coordinate plane that the students can use to act out finding/graphing ordered pairs. I learned how to make this from a PD given by some speakers from the New York City Mathematics Project (NYCMP) I attended at the Frederick Douglass Academy in the city. I have been working on this for 3 days. I highly recommend creating this with someone, as creating it alone is quite tedious and takes lots of time.
I used duct tape and a shower curtain. Using simple colors (i.e. black) is also a great idea, as I spent half of the weekend running around to find the same lime green duct tape I used to create the first set of grid lines (after I ran out..). The "squares" are 4.5 x 5 inches. I hope the kids will be excited to use it!
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Going Back: Negative and Positive Integers I Homework Discussion
Going Back: Positive and Negative Integers II Homework Discussion
Friday, August 1, 2014
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