One of Those Days...

I've been watching way too much Keeping Up With The Kardashians in an effort to numb my brain during end of quarter grading, so here it is, the peak and the pit of today.

Pit: The server goes down. In the middle of 5th period. For 2 periods. When I have tablet and Smart Board activities planned for all! Coworkers lost all files. Thank you, Dropbox, for saving my life. 

Peak: My Geometry class bringing a staples "easy" button to class and it exclaiming "That was easy!" every time we successfully finish a tough problem. Special right triangles ain't never been so much fun. 

Notice...the peak is the kids. The pit is all the other nonsense. 

Mathematical Bakery

Working with generalized proofs today, we ran into a problem that said (a+b)(a+b)...we were using the distance formula. Oh the crazy answers I heard from my Geometry students!! Sure, we haven't done a lot of multiplying of binomials this year, but still....I was a bit frightened. I explained to them that at the end of this year we're going to do a pretty hefty Algebra review to make sure they're in shape to take Algebra 2 next year. I told them "factoring is cake compared to what you'll see there!" The following conversation ensued:

Student 1: "So....you're saying Algebra 2 is like a scone?"

Me: "What??"

Student 1:" Well if factoring is cake, Algebra 2 is a scone....it's a little harder."

Student 2: "Pre-Calculus must be like a stale scone!"

Student 3 (from across the room): "And Calculus is like a really hard loaf of bread!"

Student 1: "Good thing we have studying...that's our coffee! We can dip our scones into it and it will soften them and make them taste better."

Student 3: "I don't think I'm going to study in Calculus."

Me: "Why not?"

Student 3: "Because....old bread dipped in coffee? Gross."

Groups of kids like that remind me why I love my job, especially on the days when you're ready to hide under your desk.

What do Hercules, Kings, and Exponents all have in common?

Just introduced exponential functions in Algebra and I wanted to find an engaging way to get them hooked. I proposed this question to the students and asked them think & discuss with their groups:

A king has offered you a handsome reward for all your service to the kingdom. You may choose either:

- $1,000 on each square of a chess board until it is filled

- $0.01 on the first square, $0.02 on the second, $0.04 on the 3rd, until the board is filled

Which do you choose and why?

Naturally, most of them picked the $1000 deal- because obviously it will yield more money! Only one student bothered to actually do some calculating...like by the 17th square you'll start getting way more than $1000 per square. 

I had two students come to front of the room and handed them an envelope with the amount they would receive in it. They went nuts. Why would this happen? They thought & discussed. Geometric vs. Arithmetic sequences.... counter-intuitive but captivating!

I then showed them this clip of Hercules fighting the hydra. They then broke into 5 groups and each had a different type of hydra- one that loses one head and grows 3 back, one that loses one head and grows 4 back, etc. They had to make a table of the number of heads in each round, then write a function equation for it. This, of course, led easily into graphing and seeing the growth. Which hydra would you least like to face? The one with the biggest common ratio/rate of growth! Vi hart wrapped it up beautifully for the day with her binary trees video. Fun day!

Giving Thanks

Teachers have a relatively thankless job. We spend 40 hours a week with students who are learning what it means to respect and appreciate. Translation: we sometimes go unrespected and unappreciated. We all have those students in our classroom who try our patience each day, the parents who attack before they ask any questions, and the administrative hoops that must be jumped through. 

After a particularly trying day, I read this article from Edutopia and thought it was a perfect sentiment for Thanksgiving week. The trying people in our lives so often become "bigger" than the people who are doing the right thing. It's sad, really....when so many people are doing the right thing. Let me tell you a little bit about my students:

- I have one student who, on her way out of my classroom, thanks me everyday. 
- I have a student who takes it upon himself to encourage his classmates to be respectful and kind, inside and outside the classroom.
- I have my wonderful basketball team who displayed such amazing leadership during their scrimmage with the Special Olympics. 
- I have a student who, when a friend faced with the typical "middle school" girl drama, told me she'd always wanted to be someone people could go to and she was just happy she could be there for someone else.
- I have a student who spent my first 3 months at the school pushing back on my authority because I was young. Now, a year later, he treats me with respect and amazes me daily with maturity and insight. 
- I have one student who offers me a hug whenever he senses I'm having a bad day. 
- I have a posse of 7th grade boys who give me all the fantasy football advice I could ever want.
- I have many students who come on time, come prepared, and come ready to learn.
  

And you know what? I rarely, if ever, thank them for that. On a small scale, I try to thank them when they carry something for me or when they check to make sure I've set my line up before the NFL's Thursday night game. But I don't thank them enough for being role models, for being leaders, and for making good choices. It might be a little early for New Year's resolutions, but I know this. One of my goals this year is to thank at least one more of my students everyday. 

Have a happy, safe, and restful Thanksgiving! And a word of advice....Put. The. Grading. Down. 

Success: Redefined

There are lots of different ways I define success for my students. Yes, I am happy when my they "succeed" on a quiz and get a good grade. This success comes easily to some and only by labor and pain for others. No matter how small the victory, I try to celebrate it with that student. Then there are the times when the student who struggles through math every day makes the game-winning goal at the soccer game. Those moments are just as proud for me and often more enlightening. Getting to see someone at their best makes you re-examine your biases about them- something every teacher needs to do sometimes. Flash to tonight...

I played basketball in middle school. No one said I played it well, but play it (and love it) I did. I am an avid college basketball fan.....including an NCAA tournament trip and quite nearly 1.000 college basketball games throughout my life. So after a wonderful weekend, I spent my Sunday evening at school watching some serious hoops action. The JV and Varsity teams were having their first scrimmages and were also assisting with drills and practice for a local Special Olympic team. 

Tonight defined for me a third type of success....the type where I see my students succeed as people. These 12, 13, and 14 year old students tirelessly walked through drills and talked with people who are very different from them. My students were not afraid or "too cool"; they were inviting, gracious, and supportive. After drills and games, the Special Olympic team scrimmaged for the crowd. My students cheered on every success and supported every failure. They offered hugs and congratulations to all the players. 

One of those moments that reminds me that I teach kids, not math. Really amazing kids. Just something to be thankful for during this Thanksgiving week. 

Dimensional Analysis

While working extensively on rates of change, my class ran into the speed bump known as dimensional analysis. For some of my students, it came easily....they have a natural intuition about these types of relationships that makes it much easier for them. For others, it was agony. I was the dentist and they were having their mathematical teeth pulled. No one cares that there are 5,280 feet per mile when google can just tell you the answer, Ms F! Even Bill Nye's new "Solving for X" video was annoying to them....and if BILL NYE can't make it work, who can??

The turning point for all the kiddos came when I posed the following questions to them:

How many difenwarps is 2.931 yipyaps if there are 436.9 difenwarps per yipyap?

After a heated argument about the pronunciation of "difenwarp" (which, mind you, included them informing me that my pronunciation was wrong despite the fact that I invented the word), even the fast kids started to realize that their intuition wasn't always going to serve them in unfamiliar territory. 

I decided to introduce KWL charts to them as a means of gathering information. I always liked the idea of them, but for other subjects....kids want to know about their bodies or wars. Kids are less likely to want to know about combining like terms. Here's a sample of the one I used with them:

We included what we KNOW...the amount we start out with, what we WANT to know....the units we are aiming at, and anything and everything we've learned at that might help. After a few practice problems, I let them loose. Here were the results!

Ohhhh happy day! Seems like most of the resources I could find were high school chemistry labs. I'm thinking next year maybe we bake...they have to convert, they get a delicious baked good as a reward!  Any other good ideas for dimensional analysis?

The Wonderful World of....Foldables?

I am like my middle schoolers in some sense....there are "cool kids" in the "class" with whom I really, really want to hang out. Go to the mall, braid each other's hair, share secrets....you know? I just haven't quite figured out how to infiltrate their world yet. Obviously, I am talking about foldables. I see teachers who do these elaborate interactive notebooks and I think....those are SO COOL!!! But do I have time for them? Will they be helpful or are they just a bigger waste of time? How do I get a class of 28 to listen to elaborate directions for a foldable without wanting to pull my hair out? 

So today, I decided to go over to the cool kids lunch table and sit right down. We tried a (very simple) foldable for slope intercept form in Algebra. My students spent extensive time last year studying the topic, so I'm not dwelling on it for long. A foldable seemed like a good way to re-establish our relationship with good old m & b, then do some practice. Thanks to Sarah at Math=Love for the idea!

The kids LOVED it. To some extent, it was the "anything different than what we normally do is AWESOME" syndrome. But I genuinely think the found it informative and useful. 

My geometry class recently finished their own "foldables" project....making pop-up cards using triangle vocabulary. We established what an altitude is and what properties it has without even cracking a textbook. It was a nice transition to a really dense chapter (Euler line project, anyone?). 

Came out pretty cute, right?

The turkey card was from a pattern the students followed.  The Easter card was one the student designed on their own, then wrote out directions using chapter vocab.

I've seen tons of foldable ideas, but anyone have any that really hit the ball out of the park for Pre-Algebra, Algebra, and Geometry? 

Anyone have any tips on how to make and use them most effectively in class?

In the meantime, I'm going to keep creeping on their lunch table. Cool kids, here I come!

I hate...

I have a weakness. I know it. Everyday I fight it, but I just can't sometimes. Here it is...I got into teaching to teach concepts. I love the exploration lessons that engage students in problem solving and showcase their critical thinking skills. I did not go into teaching with a heated passion for standardized test review, nor did I go into teaching with a strong desire to be asked the same question 15,000 times in a 42 minute period. My students know that a multiple choice test from me means that either myself or a family member is deathly ill....or the Giants are in the Super Bowl and I just can't pull it together to write a thorough test. All of this sounds like a good thing right? At certain times....it is. But what my students do not know is that I dread almost every test and quiz review day.   So my goal has been to find activities that are engaging, provide good practice , and can somehow lessen the mass hysteria known as a room of 28 seventh graders. 

I am strictly anti review packet. The classroom I took over during my first year of teaching left me with students who relied so heavily on these they never learned how to study. I've tried what feels like a million strategies since- with mixed success. One of my favorites is having the students write their own version of the test, complete with answer key. Not only do they get some practice with the concepts, but I get to see what they view as important. I try to sneak the best question or two from the kids' tests on to the actual test....an added bonus for doing good work on the review. 

Cue this wonderful Row Game from Molly Kate at Mathemagical Molly. I adapted it for my Pre-Algebra students. Anytime I heard, "Ms. F, I don't get it!" from Student A,  I would ask Student B if they could tell me A's question. They couldn't? Guess they better work together on it first! This eliminated 98% of the questions and allowed me to move seamlessly from group to group, helping and encouraging. Goodbye gaggle of question-askers, hellooooooo critical thinking and correction of mistakes! 

Anyone have more fun ways to practice that don't make me want to say, "But Mommmm, I don't want to go to school today!"?Any other brilliant ideas for self-checking activities? Happy sharing!

The Darndest Things

I was reminded today, as I often am, of just how young my students are. Let me set the scene....flash back to those 5 minutes between 4th period and lunch today. I am sitting at my desk wrapping up an awwwwesome jigsaw activity (if I do say so myself) and trying to shoo my students down to lunch so I can run to the bathroom and scarf down a sandwich. I have Ella Fitzgerald playing in the background as I work. In walks a 7th grader....

Student: "Ms. F, why are you listening to 80's music?"
Me: "Really? Do you REALLY think this is 80's music?"
Student: "Well, yeah. It's old!"

Now let me remind you: I am only about 12 years older than my students. Many of them have older siblings my age, if not older. I listen to bad pop music, see all the stupid movies, and have to restrain myself from asking my students where they got all their outfits. I chaperoned a dance and could not be told apart from the kids in the dark because of my height. But there is one thing I know....Ella Fitzgerald is NOT 80's music.  

"You'll love it...It's like a soap opera everyday"

These were the wise words of a  teacher I observed during my undergraduate work- a time when I couldn't imagine spending 40 hours each week with 12 year olds. But, 5 years later, here I am.....spending 40 hours a week with (and at least 40 more preparing for) my 6th-8th graders in all their awkward glory.

I always imagined myself to be a high school teacher because..well...I LOVE math. And I had my big shot when I got to teach AP Calculus, Algebra 2/Trig Enriched, and a remedial Geometry course. What I learned was that all the things I loved about math were lost on my students. Their excitement for learning had already been lost in the interest of top grades to get into top colleges or the apathy that comes with struggle. They wanted "tricks" and "steps," not to experiment with problem solving or be ready to learn from failure. I found my passion with middle schoolers- the age when everything can be new and exciting, even math!

So here it is...My attempt to marry my loves of teaching, math, and writing. I'll be sharing some of the wonderful strategies, lessons, and ideas I've found and can't wait to start exchanging ones with all of you!

**Photo credit from Pinterest