Geometry: Pythagorean Theorem

Always provide a leg example and a hypotenuse example. Man, did I learn from that mistake of assuming my first year as a lateral entry teacher. I need to go back and add some color, but the kids caught on pretty quickly. I do my notes and post them on my school webpage now. This totally reduces the number of questions in regards to how and where does this go for the foldable. 

By the way, the paper was part of the donorschoose package. Apparently, I must have been mentally ill when I wrote approximately as approxi"mentally". I left the mistake for the kids to see that I can make mistakes as well. In a class like my math tech 3 group they need to be assured that mistakes are okay. 

 I love the textbook for this class. It is one of the first that puts the distance formula with the Pythagorean Theorem. Thank goodness, the connection was already made!  Other than a few moans and groans about the distance formula and the requirement to draw the triangles, my class caught on relatively quickly. 

Exponent Rules and Naming Polynomials

I love teacherspayteachers. The graphic organizer from all things algebra is the bomb dot com. It was a great asset prior to playing algebra wars. I had a few errors like a missing negative sign, so that needs to be fixed prior to posting it.  I cut the foldable so the kids had their chart of squares that they need to remember on the side. If you are like my students and wonder why I skipped 14 squared, I told them I have rarely used it in higher math classes. Using this logic, I probably should have put 20 squared.

I play the video by the Ohio school of mathematical magic. Yes, that is not their name, but play one of their songs in class and BAM. Magic!  The kids are humming the tune down the hallway.

Students look like I have just taught them how to cheat when I show them how to put rational exponents in the calculator. But it gets students saying this is easy. 

I tell students that radical signs remind me of division symbols. We always divide the number "under the hat" (elementary term) by the number on the outside. This time we call it the index. The only thing I had to push hard was the square root is an exponent of 1/2. 

These types of questions pop up on the EOC every year. I see kids get overwhelmed by the equation prior to seeing that they can plug it in the calculator. Input major emphasis on these word problems. 

Colors are key to learning as visual learners. Tomorrow I will take care of my kinesthetic learners taking another example from Math = Love. 

System of Inequalities quilt part 1

These were my two examples for my quiz today. Monday, I will take a picture of the final product along with a link to the activity.   This week, we pushed forward on graphing systems of inequalities and they finally got it. At least the majority did. So instead of a test or quiz, we did a scrapbook inequality project. Man, it was a blast!  I was thrilled in how most caught on after doing one together. It was easy to grade and now I have beautiful artwork for my classroom!

Hook for Transformations: Desmos

First, let me warn you that these challenges are super consuming and you will lose an entire class period.  Desmos.com was a happy accidental find on twitter and I am now hooked!  A way to teach transformations and to make students allow room for error.  There were a few that I will admit I gave up on in the middle of trying to find the answer, so I do recommend going through them all and then assigning a few for a class.  This is super fun!  I could see my students discussing what they did to arrive to their answer and hopefully being able to take the adjustments and creating postulates for math.  I love any time my students get sucked into an activity.  This is why I have opened up a donorschoose page for fire tablets this time.  In hopes to bring technology into my classroom for activities like this.  I need to explore some more, but I encourage you to do the same and share your experiences.  Best part...it is free!  So explore away. 

Learning through play

Tonight after playing with my children past their bedtime, I read an article about the number of students we have diagnosed with ADHD. My four year old gets in trouble for not doing a worksheet in preschool and I cannot help but laugh at the thought of preschoolers sitting still working on worksheets. Give them sand to draw in with a finger or playdoh to form the letters. I use my own child's experience to change the way I teach. And I will admit there are things I know I could improve upon, but keeping them engaged is vital to how I view the success in a lesson. I am always looking for inspiration and I hope I am sharing something worthwhile in return. 

To engage my students this semester I have incorporated an extra credit assignment for students. I know you have had a student ask an irrelevant question in class that sent you straight to google during your planning in search of an answer. I have decided we need a random question box. I will filter the questions and then post them on the back wall. Students can read the questions, then pick a topic to write a research paper for and turn in for extra credit. The papers will then be posted under the question. As public educators we get called out for limiting what students learn. Why not change that and possibly learn something along the way? Not to mention the benefits to writing as a cross curriculum along with learning about all other topics in math. Feel free to post pondering questions here or try it in your own classroom. If you do, I would love to hear some of your favorites.  My children learn through experimenting at the age of two and four, let's keep kids asking and trying in high school. 

Systems using elimination

Let me just say, wow!  The Internet is amazing!  I posted that silly donors choose video and bam I have classroom supplies coming straight to my door.  The blog had taken to the back burner, but I am back with a few posts.  I am going to do two today, the first for my Algebra class, the second for math tech 3/geometry.

I find that substitution is a difficult method to follow out of the three.  Unless you are a math nerd like I was in high school and had plenty of experience with math relays.  So finally, we come to elimination!  I think out of the three forms, minus the calculator for graphing, that this is the easiest form to solve for students.  I showed the students how to find the lcm in the calculator (a trick I didn't learn until I went back to school for my master's degree).  Go to ALPHA then over to the right to NUM and voila!  This menu can factor using the gcd, find the lcm, and plug the absolute value into your calculator.  I mean really, why did I not know about this?!

So after teaching the method, I used these worksheets from online.  There was one error on the substitution package, but the elimination seemed to be perfect.  I had students do the cut out activity as the students homework after the notes were taken.  I love this packet because it breaks the material down into steps.  The second can be used as a gallery style activity (the way I presented it) or as a matching activity.  I loved it!  The kids seems to really catch on using elimination.  I heard a few complaints from them about the number of steps needed to solve the equations.  We are playing a review game and quizzing on the three methods prior to teaching them how to just use a matrix.  Man do kids always get mad.  "Mrs. P, why did you make us do the other forms?  The matrix is soooo easy."

Note: there are limits to using the lcm or the gcd...you can only plug in two numbers and you must keep them positive.

System of Equations: Substitution

I absolutely despise teaching my lower level students the substitution method.  But the state always puts a question on the state test about the elimination and substitution methods.  Does anyone else feel this frustration?  I tend to want to jump straight to the calculator for graphing and using matrices.  But in an attempt at tutoring the other day, I had a moment of genius strike!  It inspired a creation of a worksheet...to be shared at a later date.  Note cards served their purpose in class that day.

I made the student flip the card to the other side every time he crossed the equal sign.  He said it was still a lot of work.  You know because our students are professional whiners at times, but he said it did make more sense after doing several problems like this.  Will he more than likely solve systems using a different method?  Yes, but will he recall this activity with this method?  Yes.  For some more eye candy, I have posted my latest notebook additions below.  The yellow chart came from Holt McDougal's powerpoint.

Solving for the variable patchwork quilt

This idea is a twist from my previous school.  We talked about how we could display solving for a variable in a project or a creative manner.  The problem is that kids in 9th grade who just were introduced to variables are now having to solve with only variables.  They don't realize that this will definitely help them in geometry and other future math courses.

First cut tons of paper squares!  I make mine 4.25 inches by 4.25, mostly because it only requires three cuts with an 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper.  The put the math work on the colored sheet of paper and the verbal explanation on the white sheets of paper.  Then, they put the grid together.  The beauty of it is that you can give smaller equations to lower level students and more multi-step equations to higher level students so that the final product comes together in a pretty multi-colored quilt.