Oh My! Happy holidays folks.

I do go to an improv class, it is the scariest thing I do. I do it to be reminded of what it is like to be a student. I do it to be as far away from my comfort zone as possible. I do it to remember to be playful.

What I have learned, is that there are a lot of profound life lessons in the simple lessons of improv"

🔼Commit to "yes, and." This is the mantra. Go with what you are given and expand that.

🔼Give your partner a gift. Listen.

🔼Acknowlege that everyone brings something to the table.

🔼Take risks.

🔼Learn from failure.

One game I risked doing in class involves many Nerf balls. All at once. With teenage boys. Whoo.
I am convinced this is a brain activating game. I am convinced it helps with listening and paying attention. It is also silly fun.

Start with 10-12 students in a circle. You need 3 different colored Nerf balls.
The non-participants give a category. We started
with dogs.

Round 1) Toss the ball to a person, and say your dog breed: Beagle, go all around tossing the ball to each person once. The catcher says a different dog breed: German Shepard (you can stop and have everyone who has gone put their hand on their head so everyone goes through once and knows who hasn't spoken yet).

Round 2) In the exact same order, the first person calls and throws to the person they threw to first, German Shepard. The ball gets tossed around with only the tosser saying the name of the next receiver.

Round 3, 4, 5 same as round 2. The pattern should be strongly known now.

Yup, now put ball one away. Ask for another category, in our case it was ice cream flavors.

Go through round 1 and 2 again. You can NOT throw to the person you threw to before. It has to be someone new!

Play round 3, 4, 5 with ball 2.

The rest of the rounds: Re-introduce ball 1 and at the next moment, toss ball 2! Keep going! Zing, Bozang! Fun! Think Fast!

If you dare, stop and try starting with rounds 1-5 with a ball three. Get all three balls going eventually. I have done it! It is crazy good and what a sense of accomplishment!

I see it useful in ESL classes. I will play with types of angles pairs, with new Geometry vocab, types of functions, whatev we can all think of.

I challenged the baseball coach next door to try it with his kids this spring.

I can't wait to do it as a "My Favorite" in Atlanta, if the stars are aligned for me in 2017.

If you play, or think of twist, comment below?

Why I need access to Facebook and Twitter at School

Dear Esteemed Colleagues,

I am literally dripping in sweat (TMI?) from a hot August 1 run. I was listening to Undisclosed, a podcast dedicated to righting wrongful convictions. It is also a podcast about the criminal justice system, and social justice, or lack there of, especially in our immigrant and non-caucasian communities.

One of the themes of TMC16 was (and in many ways continues to be) Math and Social Justice. (My personal goal for TMC16 was finding out as much as possible about how my colleagues were engaging on this topic)

Now let me put the two together. Today, in the Addedum 3 episode, Marsha Chatelain, Professor of History at Georgetown, told us this, "Smart People use Twitter to have Smart conversations about Smart Things," and I believe her. She went to say that Pop Culture gives more people access to get closer to issues they normally wouldn't know about. And then I thought, "Hey, she is talking about us!" Dr. Chatelain felt like some of her colleagues at Georgetown poo-poo'd the ability of a platform like Twitter be effective in stimulating and conducting intellectual conversations, and WE (the MTBoS) give Dr. Chatelain proof of her claim!
Jose Vilson told us so: Math teachers, contrary to our own beliefs, already have parts about us that allow us to engage in difficult work. He encouraged to use our mad skills at looking for depth and using multiple pathways to look at social justice. (Follow #educolor)
Tracy Zager (@TracyZager) showed us the power of the intersection between content and pedagogy when we use our Twitter for PLC's: 


So I am even more inspired by your brilliance, MTBoS. You Rock!

First Period: Well, what do you think? Anybody, anybody? I can wait you out...OY VEY!

By second and third (we are on block schedule, so we are now from 10am to 2pm) Things are oh, so much better!

Mostly I learn from try, try, try again. My favorite question go to is: How are they alike? How are they different?

Some examples:

Similar Triangles vs. Congruent Triangles
Similar Triangles vs. Dilated Triangles
Solving Equaliites vs. Solving Inequalities
atrigb(x-c) +d vs afcnb-c) + d

Other favorite questions are:
Harold says, Emilia says, who's correct? Are they both correct?

What is another way?

How do you know your solution makes sense?

How do you know?

When did you know you were on the correct path to a solution?

Where did you fall off the ramp? When did you stop understanding?

What was so and so thinking when they took the next step?

I am determined to start writing more of my questions ahead of time, and write them HUGE so I will remember to ask. I would also like to be in the habit of answering more questions with another question, even if it is only, "What do you think?"

As I have been thinking about this prompt, I am reminded about how much you learn when ask students super straight forward questions.

When you write SinA/a what does it mean exactly?
What does proportional mean?
If the scale factor is 5/4 is the image bigger or smaller?
Is the answer going to be more than or less than?

My favorite new technique is inspired by Kate Nowak, simply, "What is the Question?"

29 years and so much room for improvement...Thanks MTBoS

I was so inspired by Ilana Horn's (@tchmathculture) guest post by her own teenager, Faking Excellence: The Art of Milking Mediocrity For All it's Worth, that I have to tell you how.

The writing is my favorite kind of prose: creative non-fiction, self-reflective, witty, smart. Having a Senior in high school, we, (my daughter and I) can totally relate. As I read, my heart went thunk, as I fall into every teacher trap she laid, "Greet your teacher upon entrance, have book and supplies with you at all times..." My daughter carries a certain book with her at ALL times, how long could it possibly take to read one novel? Now I know it is just for show, as is her overflowing pencil case. I must admit, I do love the oversupplied student...

"Live life like an overworked student..." Oh so my daughter...though she ALWAYS has time to respond to friends, go to movie nights, and fit in a fantasy shopping spree online. "Do you want me to be sad and lonely? Aren't you the one who told me to spend more time with people?" Though I must wonder if this makes me a flakey teacher because I feel for students and let them slip things to me late (with explanation.) I so don't want to the one who gives the students busy work. I try to pick and choose assignments wisely, does this make for lazy students?

To linger over the greatness of the writing and try to make peace with my gullibility, I gave my students the opportunity to read the blog as extra credit. I wrote a Google Form,

And feel so excited to make more response sheets like this one to check for not only content understanding and mastery, but to hear my student's voices. We are not a 1-1 school so I am not sure I can REQUIRE a response.

How do you use Google Forms and response sheets to assess students and inform instruction?

It is important for Newbies, Oldbies, and Inbetweenbies to look for resilience in ourselves. How do we handle a dismal result from a well-planned lesson?

Blame and negative talk to ourselves are not useful or productive. So acknowledge it didn't go so well, and tweet out to your PLC, share with a trusted colleague, sleep on it, check the MTBoS Search Engine, take a run or a bath, or both!

I wanted my students to discover which triangle congruence shortcuts worked and which didn't. Last year I had good success with lesson inspired by the original CPM Math 2 curriculum, where the students cut out various triangles, we put them up on the board and decided which were the same and which were not. Problem was, not enough accuracy with protractors and notion that vertices had to be the endpoints of the triangles, so sometimes non-congruent triangles ended up in the SSS category for example.

So this year I started with a lesson inspired by one I found on James Rahn's website: Discovering Ways Triangles are Congruent. I wanted to use Patty Paper to try to get a grip on accuracy. The idea was to create triangles from all the permutations of six parts of a triangle, each of three vertices and each of three lengths. Problem was there were too many triangles (9). The students didn't like making a triangle out of one single angle, or just an angle and a side.


Most students used the arrows at the end of the rays as endpoints and closed the triangle, so many of the triangles looked the same and plus, each student had about a zillion pieces of patty paper to try to keep organized and categorized. There wasn't enough time to debrief and I wasn't prepared to store the bazillions of pieces of patty paper for the students.

After reaching out to MTBoS community and reading a January 2015 post by Kate Nowak on the same topic, I re-organized thanks to Kate's helpful recording sheet and tried again the next day. I focused on what I wanted the students to specifically see, and decided to concentrate on the triangles given three pieces of information.

This time, instead of every student doing every iteration of  a triangle with the six pieces from James' lesson,  I gave the groups of 4 and 5 students the same 6 pieces of information as they saw previously, and using Kate's recording sheet, specifically asked the students to use the patty paper to create one each per group of very specific triangles in specific orders. For example, create a triangle using side AC, then, CB, then, side BA. ENDPOINTS MUST BE VERTICES AND ANGLE VERTICES MUST LINE UP WITH SEGMENT ENDPOINTS!

I told the students they could divide the work up anyway they wanted...each take a triangle to create, work all as a team, as long as when they were finished they had 5 triangles, on 5 separate pieces of patty paper, labelled for the corresponding letter with the directions for the triangle. You have 20 minutes, GO!

I put 5 pieces of colored paper on the board and had a member tape up their triangles with the ones that were built the same way.

Dear Math Bloggers,

This one is for you. You have given me so much, I have been racking my brain trying to figure out what worthy goodness I could share with you. Well, nearly every morning, I treat myself and family to a reminder of our two years spent at the American School of India, New Delhi. Chai tea.
Here is a a coveted recipe I hope will sweeten your day and take you on a quick retreat.

Chait tea for 2

For 2 cups of water add:

5-6 pods caradamom smashed
5-6 whole cloves
1 inch fresh ginger smashed
A 2-3 inch stick cinnamon
sprinkle of nutmeg

Boil spices in water until water is color of spices:
Then add 2 cups of milk, at least 2%
and 1 rounded tablesppon of sugar

Bring to a boil and then turn off heat and add three bag of black tea: You can use Lipton's, Lyon's, PG Tips, or any Irish Breakfast or English Breakfast (I use Trader Joe's Irish Breakfast).
Let steep 5 minutes. Pour out through a tea strainer after 5 minutes. Pour into a to-go cup or mason and jar and make your journey to work a mini vacation!
Save it for at work, for a pick up at break.
Be a tea wallah, and double the recipe and deliver it by thermos to unsuspecting teachers and watch them smile!
Enjoy!

Got a new Chromebook (Thanks Tech Guy and District) and I am having fun keeping track of all my Mathy Friends from TMC15 and those I have followed for a while now.

I love sayings and being inspired and inspirational. (Do more of what you love, Christopher Danielson) Here are some of my favorites old and new that decorate my room.

New: Hannah, 17, a rising Senior, shared this one with me from her Twitter Feed:
The next one I have on my wall and also on the cover of my daily binder where I can see it.

The next one needs no explanation and has a prominent place in my room:

This one is front and center:

My favorite and well worn poster is this one because I have worked most of 29 years in two high schools in the heart of Sonoma County wine country and it is the heart of the growth mindset.

And this one:

Ummm...this too:

I do have the 8 math practices and "Welcome to Mathland" so you don't think I am a complete hippie. Women, where are you? I want the 4 Claims too.

I would like to add this one but maybe I just need it personal-size:
My teenager and her friend think I should add this one:
What's on your walls?

#tmc15 Experiencing Community
     
     Truly I don't know where to start this post. Partly an ode FOR all the MTBoSers, partly that experience where you just process and download. I did wrtite this all on paper first, just to get the thoughts out, hoping the sensation of pen to paper would help get the flow going.
(Also, I haven't read anyone else's posts yet, because I wanted to share my authentic experience of attending Twitter Math Camp 2015. Fancy that.)

Twitter Math Camp is literaly camp for math educators to gather, be a community, share, encourage, figure out, laugh, sing, and get their Geek on.  It is sponsored by us, paid for by us, and no one is getting any money for participating. The Keynotes are speaking from their hearts, the organizers are donating time and passion. That is what this is all about. And it. is. AMAZING.

     Starting with Gratitudes is always a good strategy. To Lisa Henry, her DH, her folks, and her kids, and all the tweeps who laid the ground for this amazing community, and it is about COMMUNITY.

It was one the few times in my professional life that I felt like I was in the right place. Sure I wish I had more of Fawn's consistency, and Matt's general hipness, and Michael F's mad computer skills, and Rachel's spunk, and Julie's infectious personality, and Sam's "take no prisoners" risk taking, and Chris' synapse stickers, and a thimbleful of the brainpower, energy, and creativity in that auditorium, AND stll, I felt cherished, valued, and believed in because I was there with the communal knowledge that it was our collective endgame to leave becoming better teachers, reaching more students, and grow more learning.

A few gems from the conference for you to use:

Christopher Danielson asked us to find what we love and do more of it in our classrooms. I love curiousity, I love helping students find their capabilities, I love  listening to NPR...

Fawn Nguyen said a lot, and had many of us in tears, and what I needed to hear most was, "Share ALL the lessons." Why? Because it is not about us, it is about growing learning for students. Mind Blown. Fuck the popularity contest.  (I get permission to say that from Fawn). Sure, give credit where credit is due and do please let the author know how you used the material, what tweaks you made, and how it went. And time to bring what works out of hiding.

* Do this cup rolling activity that Lisa and Jim shared with us: http://mathforum.org/pcmi/hstp/resources/papercup/papercup.pdf

Curtesy of PCMI

Add the extension: what formula could you come up with to generate the circle made by any cup?


* Ask Rachel's  two questions:
--What is the best question you asked a student today?
--What the best question a student asked you?

(Keep track and tweet or post them!)

* Google these for inspiration (thanks Fawn): Estimation180, Global Math, Mathtalks, Visual Patterns, WODB, MTBoS

* If you get stuck looking for the best way to make a lesson student centered look for the backwards version of the question (thanks Brendan and Sam)

* Get the students "Butts up," and use VNPS (Thanks Brian and Alex) to engage students in talking about math.

* So, so, so much more!

This is round one.


 
If I have left you out, please, like Sam says, don't take it personally. (I can't believe misscalcul8 was there and I didn't even know it. OMG, OMG.) I want to get this out, so you know you can do it too.

This post doesn't really fit into any of the MTBoS explorations this go round, maybe what makes my classroom uniquely mine round 2.

First off, I made the best smoothie of my green smoothie life, cures whatever ails you and gives you a mid morning nutrition blast that has become quite the habit. Pack it in a mason jar for that needed pick me up: Into a strong blender goes: 3 pitted dates, 1 pear, 1.5 carrots, rib of celery,  1/2 inch cube of ginger, two big handfuls of spinach, and .75 cup of water. Start blending on low, turn off, pack with a spoon, then blend on high until smooth. Heaven!

I have been working to pull my Advanced Algebra students out of the Algebra/Geometry For All model and into the "let's get ready for college thinking" mode. Instead of "here are three ways to know and graph quadratic functions", I let the graphs drive the equations, forcing the students to  come up with silly scenarios to write model equations. They were a lot more fun to grade and a lot of pride went into them. Honestly, I am not certain yet that deeper learning happened, as the kids stressed about getting them done. I did do one CCSS tweak to the whole thing. The first round was so awful and so lacked understanding, that I made comments on sticky notes, and had the students revise them. I realize I could have had the students do this step, and I needed to get the project going in the right direction before the students would be able to comment.

I asked the students to come up with three equations to model quadratic functions, one that utilized vertex form, one that utilized factored form and one that required students to use a system of linear equations to find a, b, and c. A lot of good discussion came up around where to place the axes and what does it mean when a isn't negative, even when we know our graph should be upside down. The graphics, of course, were the best part. I thinking mapping the path of Skittles into the mouth of the a person across the room, frogs lapping up flies mid jump, and swan divers make a case for a little psuedo-text license. Just saying.

Ha! I am one of those veteran teachers that Sam Shah was referring to when he said, If you feel like you aren’t awesome at teaching, welcome to the club. If you feel constantly like everything else you see out there is better, welcome to the club. I love you Sam!

Ack, I am even an emptynester
this year for the first time and don't even have a pipeline to popular culture. I doubt my students give a rip that I saw a 2 year old movie about a pharmacist obsessed with Woody Allen at the Jewish Film Festival, or Foyle's War on PBS, or what the latest Economist has to say on Freakonomics Radio.

But, AND here I am trying to share what I know and get better. That's the thing, right, 28 years and I can do better, get better, learn how new minds think and what gifts you all bring to the table.

I am not the teacher who invents fancy new dances like the Dishwasher and Gravity, I don't play the guitar, (I used to beat the crap out my football players doing pull-ups (not chin-ups) until I broke my arm last summer), AND what I do have is SPUNK. I can be 50 and still be S.P.U.N.K.Y. One of my new students commented, "you are optimistic aren't you?" Yup, yup, I am. I am so sure you can do this thing, because I did, I have and believe you me, you are better than I am because I am pretty confident you didn't have to go through what I did to get here. (and thank goodness for that...living on my own from age 14-15...not what I would wish for any teenager.) I never, ever, sit down. That's my schtick and I am sticking to it.


I do want to share with you a super fun activity that occurred in my Geometry class the other day.

I gave each group of four students a statement. (Thanks to Julie Reulbach for the inspiration). (I love you too, Julie!) I always give the students some way to assign tasks like materials getter, writer, speaker, time keeper, by having them figure out little details, like who has the most pets, who lives farthest from school, who has the youngest sibling, who has the "most expensive" first name (118 for Gustavo),etc...That is something I think makes my classroom "mine."

The students needed to write the statement as a conditional statement, decide whether or not it was true, and draw or explain how they knew what they knew.They did this on whiteboards.

We had the best conversations. Are three collinear points always coplanar? Are all right triangles congruent? Etc...And here is the twist. REVISION! Pick one, take it home, make it yours, and make it better! Rewrite the whole darn thing, especially if you don't agree with the conclusion, and for fun, I added, write the converse, inverse, and contrapositive and determine whether or not each of those statements was true or false. If I had stuck to the "lesson schedule," I would never had the wherewithall to extend the activity into homework that has some nice chewy bits.

Happy Fall Everyone! and Thank you for welcoming me into your MTBoS. You are the best.

My first day bell ringer for Algebra 2 came from Fawn Nyugen's lovely site, http://www.visualpatterns.org/:

(Her's looks WAY more professional):
I gave the students quiet time. Then opened the conversation to the entire class:


I was a bit flummoxed when no table emerged at first. It was both WONDERFUL and odd that NO ONE after the first block class (the next 2 classes) made a table. The part I liked about the conversation was this:

Ss: I notice that the perimeter grows by 6 each time.

T: So you mean after the first term you get + 6 and then the next one you +6 again?

Ss: Yeah

T: How do you say that with your big girl/big boy pants on? I mean, if we want that to happen on every nth term?

Ss: Times Six

T: So if we said 6n, what does the "n" represent

Ss: The nth day, I mean the nth position

T: But does that work?

Ss: No! you have to add two for the ends that don't get shared.

T: So which of the various answers are now reasonable to eliminate? How can we test the answers that left ?

Blah, blah.

MTBoS, please let me know if I could have done a better job with the generalization of this pattern. What parts were good? I was completely unsure of how to end this lovely conversation. Suggestions? 

I am linking up with Carol at Real and irrational who is inviting High School Teachers to add to her First Day Activities for High School Math Teachers. ( This is really kicking my butt to remember all the years! I have notes in my planners like: Card Sort...and guess what? I have moved rooms so many times and packed up so many times, I have no idea what that means)

Here goes:  (90 minute block)

Action:

Finding your seat. I put students is groups of 4. As the students enter, they get an index card with an equation to solve or expression to reduce. Sometimes the number is related to trivia: The number of children Ms. Z has (2) , or silly, like what a golfer yells before he hits the ball. There are 8 sets, the students have to find their table and take one of the seats. It always a good idea for them to figure out if they are in the correct place with each other. The difficulty of the card relates to the subject.

Rationale:

Students get the mindset straight away "This is a math class and we do mathy things, even on the first day."

Action:

Students find a "mathography"
survey at their table that they can begin filling out.  Also, there are very bright card stock "calling cards, " that have my email and the class website on the front and a supply list on the back.

Rationale:

We all need time to find the classroom, I need to take role, I want the students to know right away that I care about who they are,  and I don't want to overwhelm the students on the first day with a big 'ol long syllabus with a bunch of dense language making their heads spin. They need to get the essentials right away.

Action:

Uncommon Commonalities:

The students make 2 concentric circles on a piece of paper. Then quarter the rings. First they write their names in each section and something unique about them. Then in the center they have to figure out something they all have in common. (No age, grade, where they live...gotta dig deeper!) We then go around the room and introduce ourselves. (I have the eldest be the speaker, the youngest be the scribe)

Rationale:

It is important for the students to get to know each other and I use this activity for my first seating chart.

Action:

Ignite speech. First time for this. Running with Andrew Stadel.

Rationale:

Why are we here? I notice and I wonder. Setting the tone of collaboration and grit, self-determination and growth mindset.

Action:

I have done many math tasks, depending on what I am teaching.

For Algebra I start with 4 fours. Students need to number their papers 0 -10. They must use exactly 4 fours and any operations to achieve the values from 0 to 10. I have them work silently at first, then in pairs, then in whole table groups. We do a whip at the end.

For Geometry and Advanced Algebra I have started with CPM's: Yarns.
Basically the students get a length of yarn per table. They then must build a square, a 5-pointed star, a square based pyramid, etc...

For Pre-Calculus we start right away with family of functions. Tell me everything you know.

Rationale:

Working together, working on math tasks, students get a feel for what assumed knowledge I am expecting.

Changed Actions for this fall because I am smarter and wiser and taking Jo Boaler's How to Learn Maths Class, a Stanford supported MOOC.:

Instead of the above Action, I am starting both Geometry and Advanced Algebra with a number talk. (See Jo's Class for this).

Rationale:

We all have something to bring to the table. Math study is fluid, not static.

Advanced Algebra Action:

I will use Math Munch's notion of Fraud from the Park City Mathematics Institute with flipping coins and cryptography.

Rationale:

Multiple entry points, and where's big kid panties at the same time.

Geometry Action:

I will be stealing, finding/using something from the CCSS or MTBoS



Have a great opening day and best wishes for a growth year! 

(Come back for links to my ignite speech slides, my mathography blank, and uncommon commonalities blank)

I have been on vacation. Phew. Much needed. I was delighted to see two new posts in my feeder,
One from Kate at f(t) and one from Approximately Normal. I missed the Global Math Department meeting because I wasn't aware of it and, well, I was on vacation.

Having read the editable Google Doc from the conversation, I say yes! Yes to where we are at. Some more reflections: are you out there, anyone, anyone?

What constitutes a " newcomer?" I have just finished my first year of MTBoS with 57 posts. Am I still a newcomer? I have been teaching for more than a quarter century and don't know crap about Twitter ( though willing and trying) or Gavatar or Keynote, am I still a newcomer?

I was invited here, so glad to be here, and being here makes my job less lonely, especially when I want to talk shop. I have no expectations or desires for it to go this way or that. Like Andrew, over at Divisible by 3, I am just grateful this is here and I was lucky enough to find it. (Willing it, as Cheesemonkey Wonders so poetically suggests.)

Maybe:
There is no time to talk during the school day.
Maybe:
I am too burnt out to talk about math and teaching during normal people hours and when I am ready to get back to it, no one is awake.
Maybe:
I feel inspired and want to acknowledge those who've inspired me.
Maybe:
There is a question someone has about teaching math that I might be able to lead them to in a helpful direction. ( argh, it is getting late!)
Sometimes:
I can't sleep until I process an event.
Sometimes:
I cook like America's top chef and I want you to know it!

Mostly:
I want to connect with the math "poets." The people who care about people, who are multi- dimensional, not celebs, and are interested in forming genuine relationships around shared values, acceptance, interests, and the common good.

I like the quirky- throw-out-ideas-out-there-research-geek- try-to-do-our-best-for-the-students style going on out here in the MTBoS.

And maybe I blog because I really do want to be a rockstar and make a small difference.

And I am always hopeful by writing I will keep criss crossing my passions along the way.

A Day in the Life of a Math Teacher

5:30am Hit snooze button 3 times
6:00am Rise, do a few sun salutations, Pilates 100, and a few planks
6:15am get dressed, change 6 times, ignore DH's comment, "it is just school, wear clothes," He obviously doesn't understand that I teach at the same school as two High School daughters.
6:30--7:15 make coffee, three lunches, change again, wash acetates that I forgot to wash last night, stick soggy newspaper with acetates in school bag, round up 2 teen girls, head out.
7:20 arrive at school, wait in traffic from top of parking lot to my assigned parking place across from from front door of school where parents with large trucks drop their kids off even though they aren't supposed to
7:30 (no lie!) exit car
7:33 text colleague to loan me 30 copies of chapter 7 review until I can make copies at break
7:35 first period Algebra starts with new seats! Woot!
Bell ringer
Pair homework check
Radio Tower problem
Chapter 7 review--small groups, I wonder around, giving helps and hints, sending peer tutors to do damage control
Fill out basketball players progress reports
9:10 break...take roll from period 1, check email--contact counselor, freshman struggling, still no work, draws all period, run upstairs grab a cup of tea
9:25 second class of Algebra begins, see 7:35 am--add an argument between a Sophomore and Junior Boy--Ms. Zimmer, does an engineer use Algebra or Calculus? 
11 am class ends, scramble to finish seating chart for next class that I fell asleep making night before
11:05 third class of Algebra, see 7:35am
12:40 class ends, lunch begins. Take roll for two previous classes, give lunch to freshman daughter, look for the keys that are already in my pocket, check box, have meeting with colleague, bathroom or box, box or bathroom...box is closer and takes less time, hold it.
1:10 pm fourth class of Algebra, see 7:35am
2:50 pm excuse classes for day, clean off boards, trade freshman daughter book bag for tennis racket and gear, check email, cell phone, take soggy newspaper out of book bag and put away acetates I didn't use, Senior daughter comes down, wants to get home, stop by Dept. Chair's room, finally go to bathroom
3:15 pm head home via vegetable market
3:45pm make a cuppa, leash up dog, walk around the one mile block
4:15pm head back to school, pick up freshman from tennis, take her to singing lesson
5:00pm take second walk without "pee mail" stops every 5 feet.
5:30 pm text senior daughter how to make fajitas
5:45pm take freshman home from singing lesson
6:15pm arrive home, make a snack, leave to return to school for Nicaragua Service trip meeting I am chaperoning over spring break
8:00pm arrive home, eat dinner, scrub stovetop, update website, scan review worksheet one blank, and one with answers, upload to website, delete spam comments, fold towels and blankets that have been on couch since Sunday, check email
10pm Bath!
10:15pm Physical Therapy exercises to recover from broken humerus
10:35pm type day in the life
11:10 pm give/ receive kisses from daughters and DH (darling husband), kiss puppers, kick cat off bed, lights out!

Please oh please come visit me on my Blog...I know you are already here, but I just made my first video using Educreations! I have a sub today (It is Yom Kippur...frustrating that one teacher said to me, "I hope you have fun on your day off! And my husband must attend a city council meeting...I realize we are a very small population...just makes me feel isolated...but for those of you out there that are MOT's, Happy New Year!) and wanted the kids to have any other resources available to them...I was at school until 8:30 pm, putting the lesson all together...yipes...fingers crossed.

Anyway...without further ado, here is the 4 minute video featuring...ME!

                                  Click on the Graph to Watch Video! (how cool is that???)

Finding Slope of Line

PS Julie! I did it!

PPS Next, the kids will do the videos! 

I should be loading grades. I am planned. First period papers are graded...nothing I can do about making copies at 10pm on Sunday night, so I might as well tell you all what I made for dinner! (Can't wait to show the pictures of Group Graphs we did on Friday...will bring Ipad in tomorrow and post pictures tomorrow night)

Fresh Tomato Basil Soup with heirloom tomatoes, basil, and greek yogurt, Bean Salad (my 14 year old's fave with my dijon vinegrette and lots of parsley) and roasted Delicata Squash rounds.

I woke up and make Chocolate Zucchini Cake too.

Friday we shared Shabbat Dinner with a friends...they hosted us...yummy Middle Eastern faire,
Homecoming was Saturday Night, we all ate open-faced homemade pesto, hard cheese, and tomato sandwiches, and

Thursday night, I made the most heavenly Ground Turkey Stuffed Zucchini Boats (The 14 year old had her stuffing with Pasta because...)

Wednesday night we had Fresh Ground Turkey Pasta Sauce with Spaghetti (I had my sauce in corn tortillas) and Salad and

Tuesday night we had the left over Corn Tortilla "Lasagne" with fresh salsa.

It was a good week. Oh I remember what else we had for "dinner" Saturday night...Banana, Maple yogurt, orange juice, and frozen fruit smoothies.

Please Note: I live in Sonoma County, California...Sebastopol to be exact...I live in heaven.

AND...please leave a comment if you want any of the recipes!

Amy

Wow. This has been wonderful. I hope we can keep connected. For week 4 I would like to share some student work from my Algebra 1 Classes.

I had an epiphany about how to get students to see the difference between solving these two linear equations:

 3/4(p + 1) = 6 and 3/4p +1 = 7

So I had the first student in each row of six (I share a room) come up to the front and Pow- Wow with me. I made the diagram and told them that they were going to go back to their "pod" (row) and take the students to the white board and lead them in a discussion about the similarities and differences in solving these two problems.

Here is "Group Awesome's response:






I was introduced to the anagram: SFDCVAM as "PEMDAS-ean" way to get students to think about solving a linear equations. Here are the notes:

I don't if you can see too much, but it starts with S--clear double signs, F--Fraction Bust, D--Distribute, C--Collect like terms, V-- bring variable to one side, A--add or subtract, M--multiply or divide. My department chair, Betsy came up with this (I think). So I used her example: Some Fat Dumb Cows Vacuum and Mop. Here are three student versions:

From the C student:
"Some Friends Drive Crazy Vans Around Mountains"

From the B student:

"Some Fat Ducks Can't Verify Any Math" (Did you check out the duck's eyes?"

From the A Student:


Well, you can read that one.

I love when math students get to shine using all their intelligences.

Anyone else have a INB week?

Amy

Math Blogger Initiative Week 3

I was super excited to have my week 2 post picked up by one of the blogging initiators. Lots of hits, 2 comments, one of which is mine...insecurity settling in...but wait, writing is for me...right...carry on!

Have you ever read an article you just didn't want to end? I have, I did...and I want to share it with you all. The best darn article I have ever read on math education, that made me drool with desire for similar discourse, is by Jerry A. Ameis in the March 2011 edition of Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School. So here is what I did after reading The Truth About PEMDAS:

The second day into teaching Algebra 1 I asked the students to write down the solution to
2 + 4 x 4. Thankfully I got the two responses I was looking for evenly distributed among the students, 18 and 24. A debate ensued and eventually the group that answered 24 buckled with, yeah,yeah. Then     I told them a rocky the squirrel story, how Rocky stored 7acorns in one tree and hid two sets of 6 acorns in another tree. I then had them illustrate the scenario. Every single kid got the correct answer and we had  good fun laughing at the "asparagas" trees one student drew for us on the board. We agreed the expression 7 + 2 x 6 was the correct one.

What was so empowering is that I could show them how smart they were and that they intuitively know that multiplication takes precedence over addition. I am sure the kids had new confidence going forward with working with order of operations.

I wish every lesson I teach could be as fun and empowering as this one. Please Mr. Ameis, tell me the rest of the story.