Excited about tomorrow

Tomorrow we will be graphing quadratics. First, they will factor to find the x-intercepts. Next, we will be practice finding the vertex. The final round will require students to graph the vertex and 2 points to the left and right of the vertex.   This one may be tricky, but the goal is to simultaneously have students graph out 2 different equations causing the relay to become interesting. I may go back to the fly swatter if it becomes too hectic. Also, I am keeping this short because I have been baking for them post parent teacher conferences. Good night. 

Where is My Class?

As an educator, especially a secondary teacher of upper class students, I often wonder what has happened to my class. I make phone calls for those who are starting the habit, but recently I have noticed a trend on test days. 

So what do you do?  Well, we did a poster project to reward those who were doing what they are supposed to do. But using the time to review for those who may have missed a concept or two. 

Require students to write their own definition instead of using the book. Have students make up there own examples, but allow them to use problems from their previous class work. 

Give extra points for the overall look of the poster. My students were engaged, but those who typically give up do the posters. What?  We learned something today and I have free art work for the classroom. 

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. 

Multi-Step Equations

   (Original)

Are you teaching Algebra 1?  Then you must check out Henrico county's Algebra 1 module site!  I love their cutouts and class activities and if I am running low on time, they have the BEST jeopardy!  I feel like I am abusing my exclamation points, but when I was a first year teacher, I was thrilled to come across this site.  Especially being a lateral entry teacher, I had not seen Algebra 1 since my 8th grade year.  It's a great refresher if nothing else.

    (Final product)

Today we used one of the graduation puzzles.  It took almost 40 minutes for the kids to complete the puzzle, but I love that they were all engaged.  It may have been because I bribed them with tickets as well.  Some gave up, so I would help them find four pieces to encourage the to keep trying.  It was interesting to see the different methods the kids used to solve the puzzle.

Geometry snow day!

Because we don't have school today, I browsed through past projects and thought this one to be appropriate. 

The last lesson for geometry was surface area and volume. The kids wanted a party and we still needed to test...the result were geometry inspired edible snowmen. The kids had to find the volume and surface area of each item. 10% of the test was making the snowman. 

We decided after this first draft we really only needed the sixlets for buttons, the marshmallow head, the zebra cake body, the Reese cup head, straw arms, and dots for the mittens and an oatmeal cookie for the base. Needless to say the kids enjoyed their test.