#Made4Math - Pinch Cards and Stoplight Cups

Wow - my first #Made4Math post of the summer! I've officially been out of school for one month today, but honestly, it doesn't feel like it yet! With the AP Reading and getting ready for the AVID Summer Institute, it's been a *busy* summer so far! However, I still have so much on my to-do list that I hope that I can get it all done!

Project #1 - Pinch Cards
If you follow me on pinterest, you might have noticed that I've been pinning a lot of Formative Assessment ideas. After reading Embedded Formative Assessment earlier this summer, I have decided this is a major goal for me this year. I've thought a lot about student response cards and how I want to incorporate those into my classroom. I do have electronic clickers, but honestly, those often take more time than they are worth to set up, so I wanted something easy that I could use on a daily basis. A lot of the response cards I had seen were held together by jump rings, which I thought was an awesome idea, but I decided to try Pinch Cards instead:

The idea behind a pinch card is that students hold them up and put their finger over their letter choice. Since our AP test has 5 possible answers for every multiple choice question, I went with ABCDE options. On the back, I put options for Always/Sometimes/Never. I've never used these before, but @pamjwilson really likes A/S/N so I trust her judgment!

Want the file? Get it HERE

Project #2 - AVID Binders
Tomorrow, I leave for AVID Summer Institute, which is our yearly training (aka AVID Summer Camp). This is an intense 3.5 days where I will be with 8 of my colleagues nearly round the clock. As the Site Coordinator, I have a leadership role in making sure SI goes smoothly and we use our time in an efficient manner. Of course, being the organized person I am, I decided to put together binders for the participants:

Each person has a binder labelled with their title. Inside each binder is Cornell notepaper and tabbed dividers. In front of the dividers is the AVID mission statement and how it parallels to our district goals. The first tab has a copy of our 2012-13 certification documents so that each of the participants knows where we stand in terms of the 11 AVID essentials. The second tab has a classroom observation form for us to self-assess our classrooms as well as additional lesson ideas to incorporate WICOR (Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization, and Reading) Strategies. The third tab deals with the AVID classroom standards and daily lesson plans. The fourth tab is a copy of the AVID Weekly table of contents for each month of this past year. The fifth and final tab are documents specific to our school, such as our contract, intervention plan, etc.

I know the AVID binders aren't really a #Made4Math probject, but I spent a lot of time on them and I'm very proud of how they turned out! :)

Project #3 - Stoplight Cups
Project #3 is still in progress, mainly because I haven't been to my classroom yet! However, if you follow me on twitter, you might have seen me tweet about them...

We went to our new Dollar Tree to try to find these suckers... they only had Red and Green. Decided to make the drive into town to go to the party supply place to buy these. On the way home, stopped at Dollar General and they had the Yellow. Could have saved myself a few dollars, but oh well! :)

In case you are wondering what I plan to do with paper cups, these are part of my Formative Assessment goal. I work in groups a lot during class and I spend a lot of time milling about listening into conversations. These cups will be on their desks (upside down) when they are working. If everything is going well, the green cup should be on top. If the group hits a snag, but are still able to keep working, they will move the yellow cup to the top. If they really need help ASAP, the red cup should be on top.

What did YOU make for #Made4Math?
Head on over to the #Made4Math blog to see the posts from other participants! Happy Monday!