Spring Break

It has been a while since I have posted, so I have a few goodies that I plan to share in the next few days to catch you up on the activities that were considered successes.  The first one was how I dealt with students who would rather talk about Spring Break plans than do work.  Kids on the day before any long vacation are not at their prime for learning.  Keeping this in mind, I created a review egg hunt.  The problems were scattered around the room/hidden and they had to try and find them to solve.  When they completed the question, I asked them to put it in a new location to keep the hunt a little more exciting. They did well for the review considering domain and range is sometimes a challenging section.  Also, some of the eggs were silly note the back of the red egg in the picture.

Next, I used a graphing activity from math aid.  We were going into a graphing unit next, so I used it to see who could graph and who could.  They turned out to be cute and added color to my walls.

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.

Multi-Step activity

So my students will need tons of practice on this section.  Previous to our quiz today, I had the students walk around the class and answer each question of the set of 8.  Once they have solve a problem, they find the card matching the solution.  They should complete all 8 problems.  If they didn't solve all 8, then they need to revisit their work.  If they can't find their answer, they need to revisit their work.

I send them in groups of three or four depending on the size of the class, so there isn't a pile up.  If class all end up at the same equation, I may sit them down in groups and allow them a "runner" to get the next equation.  I'll post an update on it later today, since I didn't share any goodies yesterday.

Round robin

Today I set the desks into groups of four for a round robin activity for solving multi-step equations.  I have name cards in red (pink), yellow, and green on each desk.  If the kids needed help with a question they put up the red card, yellow if they are still working, but would like for me to check behind them, and the popular green "I've got this".  Each student received 8 different problems and they only did a part of solving the equations, so they were in groups, but they couldn't cheat and everyone had a role.  I learned some things today from the activity.  For example, they need a checklist on each problem, so they know what they are doing next when they receive the next sheet. 

(Excuse the messy desk)

Each child had a different colored pencil, so I could grade the accordingly and quickly find who was still lost. 

Next, we played one-step equation bingo, this can be found here.  The kids thought it was a fun day, instead they solved 5 math equations in one class period!  They did great!