#MTBoSChallenge - Week 9 - Sunday Summary

Welcome to the #MTBoSChallenge! 

Each week there are two options:

• On Saturdays, you can choose to blog on a weekly prompt.  Go check out the awesome and amazing posts submitted this week at Middle School Math Rules.  No worries if you didn't blog yesterday, you can still submit your post using the linky at the bottom of her post.
• On Sundays, you can choose to blog a Sunday Summary of your week.  The idea for the Summary is to provide you a way to reflect on the past week and share what you are looking forward to this coming week.

Feel free to choose either option (or BOTH!), add it to the linky on the host page and don't forget to tweet it with the hashtag #MTBoSChallenge as well!

Now on to my post for the day...

My Sunday 3-2-1 Summary

3 good things that happened this week:

• No meetings!!  This week was the first week of the year where I had no after-school meetings, and therefore, I was able to get things done early-ish and I made it home before dark every day!  For me, that's a VERY good thing!
• Dinner with a friend!!  One of my colleagues had asked me a few weeks ago about going to dinner to talk about strategies she could use with her class to increase student engagement.  We went to dinner this week and I had such a delightful time talking math and teaching with her. 
• Former students!!  This was definitely the week of former students as two of them came up to me at the previously mentioned dinner and then more came to see me at school this week.  I love hearing from former kiddos!  It is very reaffirming for me when a former student makes a point to say hi, catch me up on their life, and shares what they've been doing since high school. 

2 strategies I used this week in class:

• Whip Around!!  We took a quiz this week, so the day before, I decided to try the Whip Around strategy to get the kids out of their seats for a few minutes and to start their brains thinking about what all we had learned.  I gave the kids 2 minutes to come up with a list of 3 things they had learned this chapter, then we all got up into a large circle around the room.  A Whip Around is similar to the Wave in a large stadium, but instead of moving our arms in a wave, we do it verbally.  One person started and we quickly went around the circle sharing one thing we had learned, hopefully with minimal repeats. 
• Flipped classroom... kinda!!  On Monday, I had to be out in the morning for a required training, so I used the EduCreations app on my iPad to create a short video lesson for the kids to take notes and learn without me there.  It may not have been the most successful lesson ever, but it is totally how I plan to do sub lessons from now on!  The kids were quiet, engaged, and I didn't lose a day of instruction!  YAY!

1 thing I'm looking forward to this week:

• Fall Break!!  We have parent teacher conferences Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, then we are off the rest of the week for Fall Break.  I really need this break to clean my house, get some rest, spend time with hubby, and in general, rebalance my life.  Hubs took off from work on Thursday and Friday as well, so I hope we can do a small day trip as well as deep clean our house and do some small organizational projects.

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