It's Friday!!! and a short apology... :)

Yay!!! Friday is finally here! I am SO ready for this weekend! I need time to sleep, catch up, and get my bearings again.

I feel horrible for not posting much lately, other than the #Made4Math and #MyFavFriday collections, but this school year has majorly kicked me in the tail. To add on to it over the holidays, my car had to go into the shop to have the fuel pump replaced (who would have thought that leaking fuel was a bad thing???) and my roof has to be replaced. Nothing like major expenses during the Christmas season! :) The car thing really irks me because if you search for my car model and fuel pump, you get page after page of "recall" notices... but not for my specific VIN, so GM won't cover the repair. *sigh* Thankfully, my stepmom was able to lend me her car for the week, so I've still been able to have transportation. *silver lining*

I have several posts for #Made4Math ready to write, but simply no time to write them. When the "Day in the Life" inititative was going on earlier this month, I tried for several days to track my activity, but every day by 9am, my list was already long and I got overwhelmed and gave up. This entire semester has been like that :( I am juggling as many balls as I can, but no matter what, something ends up dropping :(

But, even in the midst of craziness, good things are happening! I enjoyed spending time with my family and I am reminded on a daily basis of the blessings in my life.

All that to say... I'm so ready for life to settle down! :)

Happy Friday and happy weekend to all!

My Favorite Friday - Week 18

Don't forget to submit your post HERE

@_CindyWallace_ - Bloom's Taxonomy and Technology Guide

Made4Math - Week 22

Don't forget to submit YOUR #Made4Math post HERE

Here are today's submissions:

@wyldbirman - Systems of Equations

Beth - Mixed Practice Equations of Lines

Fouss - Precalc Stations

@luvbcd "Middle School Math Rules!" - Tackling my Printables TO DO list

@misscalcul8 - Unit Plans

Made4Math Monday - Week 21

Happy Thanksgiving!!! I hope all of you have very safe travels and enjoy an amazing time with your family and friends :) During this time of giving thanks, let me share how much YOU mean to me. When #Made4Math was started this past summer, I don't know that any of us could have dreamed of how well it would be received and how much effort people would put into their creations. It has been simply amazing to see the resources that are shared every week and the creativity that goes into each and every post. Thank you all for being supportive of #Made4Math! As @samjshah pointed out the other day, this has been a heck of a year for the math-twitter-blog-o-sphere and I'm so proud to have played a part in it. Have a wonderful week!

Don't forget to submit YOUR #Made4Math post HERE

Here are today's submissions:

Beth - Point Slope Form

@misscalcul8 - Piecewise Functions and Cup Stacking

@sqrt_1 - Dry Erase Practice Folders

@tbanks1906 - Made4Math: Homework Help - Smartboard...

Sometimes we forget...

Sometimes we forget that even though our students are young adults, they really are little kids at heart...

Today in Algebra 2, I stole an idea from one of the science teachers. Over the past 2 weeks, we've learned 5 ways to solve quadratic equations. So, when the students came into class today, on the board for their warmup was the following:

On the next page of your notebook, on the LEFT side, trace your hand :)

They all seemed somewhat confused but they followed the instructions :)

Then, I had them fill in the five fingers with the five ways we've learned to solve quadratic equations...

Finally, I told them to finish up their page by making a Hand Turkey. It cracked me up to see how excited the kids got - one girl literally was bouncing in her seat! :)

So here ya go... some Hand Turkeys for you to enjoy! Happy Thanksgiving!

And that is my #MyFavFriday :)

My Favorite Friday #17

Don't forget to submit your post HERE

@algebrainiac1 - Technology as a time saver

@_CindyWallace_ - Thanksgiving Classroom Happies

@druinok - Sometimes we forget..

@tbanks - My Fav Friday: Waterfall Trivia

@misscalcul8 - Whiteboards and Pipe Cleaners

Made 4 Math Monday - Week 20

Don't forget to submit YOUR #Made4Math post HERE

Here are today's submissions:

@reminoodle - No Cell Phone Sign - End of the Trimester Policy Revisions

@_CindyWallace_ - Totally Awesome Prizes

@lmhenry9 - Factoring Practice

@Fouss - Trig Stuff

@misscalcul8 - Parallel Lines and Transversals Investigation

My Favorite Friday #16

Don't forget to submit your post HERE

@misscalcul8 - File Converter

@misscalcul8 - mp3 Converter

@algebrainiac1 - Technology as a time saver

Made4Math - More Quadratic Fun :)

This week I have some more quadratic goodies to share with you...

Project #1 - Quadratic Function Foldable
Last week, we started the dreaded Chapter 5 - Quadratics. This is the point where students really start thinking "HOLY MOLY! I have to *study*?!?!". Of course a huge part of Quadratics is the terminology. So, here is the foldable I did last week to help with the lecture notes...

In case you want it... HERE is the file :)

Project #2 - Quiz Review!
I love, *love*, LOVE Julie for showing us the photo frames for stations! My students love how professional they look and no more "Hey! I can't see!" :) Today we reviewed for a quiz tomorrow... I got a ton of work done while the students worked away!

I really should use this more often... I am so productive on the days I use these!

Project #3 - Solving Quadratics
On Wednesday, we will start solving quadratics. Wednesday and Thursday are block days for us, and 100 minutes can be way too long if you don't break it up! So I'll start out lecturing on how to solve quadratics using graphing, factoring, and the square root methods, then turn them loose on this activity. Each group will get a set of cards and turn them all over to the answer side. They will pick one quadratic to flip over and as a group, solve that quadratic. They find the answer in the answer pile and flip that card over to get the next problem to solve.

Whew!! It's been a busy week!

Have a Happy Monday!

#Made4Math Monday Week #19

Don't forget to submit YOUR #Made4Math post HERE


Here are today's submissions:

Beth - mx+b lesson planning

@4mulafun Jennifer Smith-Sloane - November Reward Coupons Freebie

Fouss - iPad apps

@druinok - More Quadratic Fun

My Favorite Friday #15

Don't forget to submit your post HERE

@_CindyWallace_ - Makayama iPad Case

TravelingMathTeacher - GEEO Travel for Teachers

@druinok - My Favorite People of the Week

Beth - "can't do without" tools

@bobloch - Using Desmos Calculator to Assess at 1-Variable Equations

My Favorite People of the Week

It's Friday again!! Wowzers, where does time go? :)

This week, I have two favorites to share with you :)

Favorite Person #1
On my #Made4Math post this week, I gave a shout out to Amy Gruen. If you've never read her blog, then go there - seriously, go now!!! Amy is one of those math teachers that I have a total blog crush on. I mean, I can't think of a single time that I have read her blog and not gotten a great idea for my classroom!

Anyway, recently she posted about factoring and as I posted on #Made4Math, I was stealing her idea to use in my class. :) Yesterday was our monthly "late start" day, where the students come 2 hours late so that the teachers can work together. On those days, one class doesn't meet and yesterday that class was one of my Algebra 2 classes. Since we would be learning factoring today, it fit in perfectly to do Amy's activity during the late start day in my other Algebra classes.

So yesterday, each group got a work mat and a stack of binomials. They had to find the two binomials that multiplied together to equal the trinomial. It was great practice to remind them how to "FOIL" (Yeah, it's an annoying acronym, but don't flame me... it's one of the few things that the kids remember from Algebra 1)

Thank you Amy for being awesome and sharing your creation with us!!! You are definitely a #MyFavorite :)

Favorite Person #2
My next favorite person is one of my parents this year. These parents are amazing and I would totally volunteer to teach their kiddo for the next 2 years. On the first day of school, this mom comes up to me and gives me a goodie bag and says "Welcome Back to School!". I had no idea who she was, but I said thank you and she walked off. Later, I found the gift tag and the last name was the same as one of my students.

This comes last week. I'm in my classroom after school and in walks Mom with a gift bag. I go out in the hall to visit with her and she tells me to open my gift. It was a tshirt that said "This is my math teacher costume" - OH.MY.GOSH - How cool!!! I wore it on Halloween and got so many comments from the students! LOL

So after school on Halloween, I run next door to ask another teacher a question and when I come back, this was on my desk:

There wasn't a name on it, but when I looked out the window, I could see the Dad climbing into his car, so I ran outside to thank him. The box was filled to the brim with homemade Halloween cookies... and some really creepy looking finger cookies. LOL

This week was a crazy week, but thanks to Amy and these parents, the week was SO much more bearable than it could have been! Thank you, Favorite People of the Week! :)