Using Manipulatives in Geometry - an NCTM Reflection

In October, I had the opportunity to visit Washington, DC to attend the NCTM annual conference.  I'm blogging through some of the sessions I attended to help me process and reflect.

One of my favorite sessions from the conference (and one of the few sessions where we actually DID math) was on Using Manipulatives in Geometry and was presented by Erin Schneider of CPM.  I have long been a fan of the CPM curriculum and I wish it was available in my state!

One of the first activities we did was using an 8 foot length of yarn that had been tied into a large loop.  Erin asked us to work with our team to use the yard to create the solids shown in the picture.  This was a great team-building exercise and a great activity for post-lunch time on the first full day as it got us out of our seats, talking / communicating with other people, and using spatial reasoning.  I jotted in my notes that this would be a fabulous first day of school activity (or first day of the SA/V unit) for my Honors Geometry kids, so please hold me accountable on this one!

From there, she moved to talking about a Kaleidoscope and its use in Geometry.  I remember LOVING my Kaleidoscope as a kid, but never thought about how I could use it in my classroom!  She started with a video for us to notice/wonder, then we used hinged mirrors to create our own to explore polygons.  (You can see her image at the bottom left of the collage.  When I got home, I immediately searched Amazon for cheap mirrors that I could use.  I found some plastic ones and when they arrived, I taped them together and started playing!  Every student that has noticed the hinged mirror has been fascinated with it!

In the workshop, she was using it to explore polygons and central angles, but it could also be used to explore rotational / reflectional symmetry as well as building the Area Formula for Regular Polygons.  

We were already running out of time, so she shared some quick ideas on various topics before moving on to using a pantograph for dilations.

You can use 2 identical rubber bands and tie them together as seen at the upper right here.  Draw a small pre-image (seen here as a small heart at the corner of the paper, then set the point of dilation (here, it was off the paper) with the knot of the rubber bands on top of the drawing.  With your pen on the paper, use the knot to trace the pre-image and your pen will be tracing the enlarged image.  Sadly, I've already done dilations in general, but this could be a fun way to introduce similar polygons, so I'm excited to try it!

As I said above, this was definitely one of my favorite sessions of the entire conference and I was able to walk away with ideas that I could easily implement, so I consider that a huge win!

Geometry Reference Sheet - #MTBoSBlaugust Day 8

 

Today was the first day of Year 25!  

This summer, I had hoped to get a lot more accomplished than I did.  About 10 years ago, #Made4Math Monday was a regular occurrence and it really helped me throughout the summer to tackle those little projects that needed to happen, plus I was able to share them and get inspiration from others as well.  

After a while, most of the little projects were done and it became tough to share weekly new creations, so #Made4Math moved primarily to the summer months.  This summer, I had plans to revive it, but I just couldn't bring myself to do many projects this summer, but now that school has started, I really don't have much of a choice - ready or not, the kids are coming on Thursday!

One of the projects I did this weekend was updating my Geometry Reference Sheet that goes on the inside cover of their Interactive Notebook (INB).  

When I first blogged about this for a #Made4Math back in 2018, the notebook was for first semester only and there was a different reference sheet for the 2nd semester.  However, at my new school, I only ended up using one notebook for the entire year, so I needed to do some tweaking.

For the original (pictured left), I was thinking about various reminders they would need from pre-requisite knowledge.  As I started thinking about the revision, I decided to cut down the Perfect Squares and add in some Square Roots to hopefully help make connections.  I also decided to cut out the Pythagorean Triples and combine the formulas so that I could extend the Area / Perimeter section.

After playing with it some more, here's what I ended up with:

Click here for a PDF copy of the file

If you have any suggestions or tweaks, please let me know!

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If you are interested in joining in the #MTBoSBlaugust fun, here's a post with some prompts to help you out!  The idea is just to blog / micro-blog during August to help us focus and reflect on the year ahead.  Please tag your post on Social Media with the hashtag #MTBoSBlaugust so we can support you in your blogging journey!

Organizing Activities - #MTBoSBlaugust - Day 7

 

Today is the last day of summer!  I'm definitely not ready for this one to go yet.  Typically, I spend a good chunk of my summer outside reading, but we've had a huge heat wave this year, including 100+ degree days in June, which is NOT typical.  I think July ended up with over 20 days of triple digit heat, so this has been a summer where I've stayed indoors, shades drawn, and lots of fans & ac!

But whether I'm ready or not, tomorrow morning will come and it will be time to report for my 25th year of teaching.  Holy moly, that seems crazy to me!  25 years!  What?!?!

Over those 25 years, I've amassed a LOT of stuff.  My room has a lot of storage, but not enough - I still have boxes in my garage from when I moved to my new school last year.  I had hoped to go through them this summer, but the heat had other plans. :)

This photo is HALF of my Geometry cabinet.  Last year I had 4 sections of on-level Geometry and 2 sections of Honors Geometry.  This year, I have 2 sections of on-level and 3 of Honors.  I really like doing activities as much as I can, so I have a ton of card sorts, files, manipulatives, etc.  Here, you can see several of the card based activities on the top shelf and manipulatives on the bottom shelf - Rules, Protractors, Measuring Tapes, Ang Legs, etc.  What you don't see is there's also a file crate on the bottom right that holds all of my hanging file activities for Geometry - around the room activities, class sets of Open Middle problems, etc.  To be honest, I have more stuff than I know what to do with!  

One of my summer goals was to organize everything and make a list of what all I had in the cabinet so that I wouldn't forget to actually USE the various activities I have accumulated over the years.

This task seemed easier said than done... I thought about a list in my lesson planner or in my binder of master copies, but I discarded those ideas because I probably wouldn't LOOK at the list once I made it.

Then, yesterday morning, I had a thought!!  (Yeah, those sometimes happen!)

When planning lessons, I tend to use last year's Interactive Notebook (INB) to help me think about what I liked and didn't like about a lesson and jot "notes to my future forgetful self" about what to change.  What if I made a list of activities and had it in my INB to refer to while planning?  YES!  This could work!

So I quickly made a half-sheet template with my units listed at the top and a 2-column paper so I could track the type / location of the resource (file, cards, open middle, Desmos, etc) and the title of the resource.  After printing it off, I sat down with my very un-organized list of resources and wrote down each one on the correct unit sheet.  The sheets are double-sided so I can add new resources as I find / make them this year and will be easy to move from notebook to notebook as years progress.

It only took me until the weekend before school started to figure out this problem that has been nagging me for a year, but better late than never, right? :)

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If you are interested in joining in the #MTBoSBlaugust fun, here's a post with some prompts to help you out!  The idea is just to blog / micro-blog during August to help us focus and reflect on the year ahead.  Please tag your post on Social Media with the hashtag #MTBoSBlaugust so we can support you in your blogging journey!

#Made4Math is Back!!

Holy Moly - It's been 9 years since we started Made4Math!!

You can read more about the beginnings of M4M or over on Pam's blog.

In 2012, Made4Math was inspired by a blog series called Monday Made It, hosted by Tara at 4th grade Frolics.  The basic idea was that on Mondays, we would share something we had created for our Math classrooms - maybe a new lesson, a new activity, an organizational idea for the classroom - the sky was the limit!  We kept M4M going for a few years and honestly it really helped me stay accountable.  This accountability is a great thing now as I'm getting ready to start a new job in a new district and I really need some accountability as I navigate through classroom organization again! :)

We would LOVE to have you join in the party - all you need to do is get your creative juices flowing and either blog, tweet, or IG your creations with the hashtag #Made4Math so we can steal your ideas get inspiration from you!

Here are my Made4Math projects this week...

Project #1 - Quarantiles

Last year, during lockdown, Nat Banting shared a project on Twitter and on his blog that he called Quarantiles.  I was so excited to make these last year for the Puzzle Table, but when the COVID restrictions came down, I knew that my beloved Puzzle / Play Table would not make an appearance and so my tiles were on the back burner.  Fast forward a year and I have zero clue what happened to those supplies that I purchased in Summer 2020, so I bought some more.  I ended up buying a pack of 100 2" squares on Amazon and the paint supplies at Dollar General.

After I made them, I realized that I messed up on one of the sets, so I have purchased another package of 100 to correct my error and add in a couple more colors.  All in all, these were super easy to make so I am curious how the kids react!  I do need to come up with a better storage box for them :)  If you search through the hashtag on Twitter, you'll find some really cool creations and even a coloring sheet where you can make a paper set of tiles!

Project #2 - Laws of Logic

At my new school, I'll be mostly teaching Geometry, so I've been going through some old Geometry files for any activities or things that I want to use.  Sadly, all of my classroom supplies are boxed up in my garage, so I'm going off memory on lessons and activities that I need to work on!

But one early topic that I know gives kids trouble are the Laws of Logic and what conclusions can be drawn.  I've used this card sort before once students knew what the LoD / LoS were, but I've never tried letting them actually come up with the laws and reasoning themselves!  This past week, I was going through some files from a textbook my first year of teaching (1998) and found this worksheet in a Lab Manual from Addison Wesley.  I liked that it asked the kids to sort the statements and see if they could come up with a conclusion.  I typed up the sentences (get the file here), printed on colored paper and cut them out.  Each group will get a set of sentences to sort and hopefully use those to discuss what would be a logical conclusion, leading us (hopefully) into the Laws of Logic!

More Projects Coming Next Week!

I will get my keys to my new room this week, so hopefully I will have some room pictures (and projects) to share with you next week, but until then, don't forget to share your creations with us using the hashtag #Made4Math.  I look forward to seeing your ideas!

#Made4Math - Preparing for a New Year

Monday is here, again???  How does that keep happening???

Seriously though, the past few weeks have *flown* by and this week will be no exception.  Between hosting the Northeast Oklahoma Math Teacher Gathering, attending another workshop at school, organizing #MTBoSBlaugust, and celebrating several birthdays / anniversaries this week, it's gearing up to be a very busy end of July / start of August!  While I technically have a couple of weeks until I officially report to school, summer is pretty much over and I have so much left to be done!

But at least I had a few bursts of productivity to share with you :)


Made4Math #1 - Big Protractor

When I first started teaching, instructional technology pretty much consisted of using transparencies and an overhead projector.  Now that we've moved past all of that, some of us (ahem) still have piles of transparencies that we stockpiled way back when. :)

For years, I have made small protractors for students to put into their notebook, but that hasn't dwindled my stock much at all.  Last year, I noticed that I kept grabbing a small protractor to illustrate on the Promethean when talking about measuring angles but for whatever reason, I never thought to make a large protractor!  So, this summer, that was one of my projects.  I just took the student image, enlarged it to fit an entire page, and printed it.  I can use it on the Promethean or on the whiteboard!  yay! :)  Here'a copy of the big protractor for you to use if you want it! :)


Made4Math #2 - Domino Puzzle

Based on recommendations from the #MTBoS, I started a Puzzle Table a few years ago and the response from my students has been amazing.  I put out a new puzzle each Monday and the kids work on it all week.  However, I will have some kids this year that I had last year, so I needed some new puzzles for the upcoming year.  Of course, the amazing Sarah (@mathequalslove) to the rescue!  (Note - if you've not read Sarah's blog - go there now - I'll wait!)  Anyway, a few weeks ago, she posted a link to the ATM Puzzle Page and while browsing, I found this great domino puzzle that I knew would be perfect for the Puzzle Table!  In the picture at the left, you can see the domino pieces plus a puzzle that Sarah shared on her blog this summer.  I organize the puzzles in a Puzzle Binder with the instructions and puzzle pieces in a sheet protector, then a divider at the back to keep separated the puzzles I've used vs those I haven't used yet that year.


Made4Math #3 - Stand and Talk

One of the best blog posts I read this summer was a post by Amy Zimmerman sharing the love for Stand and Talks.  I had previously read the original post by Sarah VanDerWerf, but Amy's post let me down the rabbit hole of research and finally to an amazing episode of Global Math Department led by Sara VanDerWerf on Stand and Talks.  Since then, I've been thinking through how I could use them in my classroom.

With AP Stat, there were some curriculum revisions this summer with the new CED, including a graph that I had never heard of - a mosiac plot.  Doing some more research led me to this link, where I found the above graphs regarding the survival status of those on the Titanic.  You can download the Stand and Talk here.


Made4Math #4 - AP Formula Sheet

In May, when the new AP Stat Course and Exam Description (CED) was released, one of the changes was the Formula Sheet.  The previous formula sheet had been around since the course started in 1996-1997 and was due for an update.  As soon as the CED was available electronically, the formula sheet was the first section I checked out and needless to say, I was a bit bummed.  The tables (Z, T, and Chi Square) were not user friendly and spanned multiple pages, which made printing them for the classroom a bit tricky.  This past week, I finally had made time to reformat them, mainly because I need to start sending stuff to the Copy Shop! :)  I formated the tables so that they will easily fit a composition notebook and still be readable.  If you would like the revised tables, feel free to grab them here!


I have a few more projects in the works, but I didn't get them done in time to share them this week, but that's okay - it gives me something to write about next time! :)  But until then, have a great week and Happy Back to School! :)

First Days of WIM

This month, I'm participating in a blog challenge called Blaugust.  To see the list of participating blogs, click on the logo above. I would encourage to you please cheer on our participants with either a tweet or a comment on their blog during this month. It can be hard to blog on a daily (or even regular) schedule! :)  If you would like to join the blogging challenge, you can still sign-up anytime!

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In Geometry this year, I am trying something new to me.  In the past, I've done something math-y on Day 1, then set up Notebooks and start teaching on Day 2.

But this year, inspired by my state's "Unit 0", which ties into Jo Boaler's Week of Inspirational Math, I am using some of the YouCubed Videos in my first few days.  (Note:  There are 3 "weeks" - I am using Week 1 for Grades 5-9+ because the Week 2 and 3 videos are just a bit too cheesy for me)

For Day 1 of Geometry, we pretty much did the WIM Day 1 lesson plan as written, other than starting out with Name Tents as a getting to know you activity.  We watched the first video and students filled in the paper at the left with 5 things they learned from the video and a question they had.  Then, we followed up with what good group work looks like and the 4 4s problem.

I did not know what to expect and how the kids would respond to a 4 minute research based video to start the year.  But to be honest, the thing that blew me away and what truly sold me on doing this in the future were the take-aways and questions the kids asked.  Here are some of my favorites:

Things they learned:

• The more you work your brain the more the brain grows.
• Stop practicing = your brain shrinks
• If you are not so good at Math but your friends are, you can catch them up by practicing more than they do.
• Nobody is born good at math, your attitude towards it is based on experience.
• If you review, stuff in your brain grows and stays
• The more you think and the harder you think, the bigger and faster your brain grows
• Synapses fire with every conversation, lesson, and experience
• Being a taxi driver in London makes you smarter for the time you're a taxi driver
• Your brain can rewire and grow from working on something for 6 minutes every day for a couple of weeks.

Questions they had:

• How strong can the rewire be, since we forget most things during the summer?
• Does age make a difference?
• How much can your brain grow?
• If our brain can grown, then does our head also grow as our brain grows?
• It is easy to be a math person if you put your mind set to it, however why is it hard to [put] your mind to it?
• I wonder what would happen to my brain if I started on math earlier in life.  Would I be more advanced?
• How many methods will we be given to accomplish this?  Will we work, therefore, in smaller increments , since the mind can, normally, really only access only so much at once?
• How do you make an experience stick for a long period of time?
• Why are certain people more determined in certain tasks?
• How do I become a math person?  
• Can your knowledge be limited depending on your brain size?
• How much does your brain change over the course of your life?
• If our brain grows and shrinks, how does your skill compensate for its flexibility?
• Why do some people brain work faster than others when it comes to math?
• Why do the taxi drivers brains shrink, shouldn't they have retained the knowledge?

I love that some of these questions will be things we are able to tackle tomorrow! :)

#Made4Math - Cover Sheet

This month, I'm participating in a blog challenge called Blaugust.  To see the list of participating blogs, click on the logo above. I would encourage to you please cheer on our participants with either a tweet or a comment on their blog during this month. It can be hard to blog on a daily (or even regular) schedule! :)  If you would like to join the blogging challenge, you can still sign-up anytime!

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Back to School!!!  Where, oh where, did summer go???

Anyway, I don't know about you, but when I get an idea, I often fixate on it until I get it done.  So this weekend, I'm working on my to-do list, getting my syllabus done, working on pages for my notebook, etc, when I open up last year's Geometry notebook and here's the inside...

Last year, I saw a pin on Pinterest with these little Protractor Pockets.  I have always given my students their very own protractor printed on transparency film but a lot of students would lose them, etc.  So when I saw the pocket idea, I thought it was *brilliant*

However, the inside cover isn't quite as pretty as the pocket, but I dealt with it.  Until today, when I tweeted out a question about reference materials that people had posted in their room.  My original thought was something like a Perfect Squares Poster or something and I had this 8am brainstorm that I would re-decorate my room - which is such an awesome idea with just a few days to go, right?  /sarcasm

But, then I had an even BIGGER brainstorm... What if I made a reference sheet for the inside of the cover with important stuff that they should know already from previous classes and/or things that they would need to reference over and over and over again??

And this was born:

As with all of my brainstorms, I don't know how well it will work, but if you want to try it out with me, here's the pdf :)

Happy Monday, y'all! :)

Organizing Rich Tasks

This month, I'm participating in a blog challenge called Blaugust.  To see the list of participating blogs, click on the logo above. I would encourage to you please cheer on our participants with either a tweet or a comment on their blog during this month. It can be hard to blog on a daily (or even regular) schedule! :)  If you would like to join the blogging challenge, you can still sign-up anytime!

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Confession time...

For years, I have had a goal of integrating rich tasks into my classroom and this year is no exception.

But... (here's the confession)... I didn't.  Or at least I didn't do it well.  There are a lot of excuses as to why, but that's not what this post is about. :)

For the first time in at least 5 years, I have the same preps as I did last year (YAY!), so I am determined that this is the year that I am going to meet my "Rich Tasks" goal.

But it's hard.  It is difficult to find good problems, to find time to sit down and sort through problems, to play with the 5 practices on how to integrate those problems.  So I had to find a way to get through some of those excuses.  I needed a way to organize the problems I did find so that when it came time to USE the problems, I could do so without additional stress.

Here's my plan:

I created a powerpoint for my Geometry book and started by making a screen for each chapter with a list of the individual lessons within each chapter.  Then, as I had time, I have populated it with problems that I've found on Open Middle, Exeter Math, Park School Math, NCTM Calendar, etc.  (I should note that I've put the source credit / link / page / number in the slide notes so that I will have access to the info but I can easily copy/paste the slides over to my working lesson PPT.)

One of the struggles I've had is what constitutes a rich task?  Mainly I've been looking for a couple of criteria:

• Accessibility - We hear about this a lot with "low floor" tasks and "multiple entry points", but I am looking for problems that all students should be able to start somewhere
• Multiple Methods - Learning is messy and part of what I love about math is that different strategies can all work well.  I want something that can create some rich dialogue on "how did you think through this problem?"
• Interesting - Now granted, I chose problems that were interesting to me.. questions that made me think, ponder, wonder, and puzzle.  And just because I found it rich doesn't mean that others would and that's okay.  

One thing I've learned about myself over the years is that if I want something to change (and be a LASTING change), I need to figure out a way to make it sustainable when the craziness of the year happens and to make it user-friendly for me so that I have fewer excuses to ignore it.

Would love to hear how you organize tasks and/or your favorite places to find tasks! :)

Productive Struggle

Alternate Title:  Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

A few weeks ago, a Twitter conversation with @JennSWhite and @Teachmathtorr started the wheels a'spinning...

I knew right triangle trig would be coming soon, so I quickly bookmarked Michele's Desmos Activity Builder (Go check it out here).  I *loved* the idea of exploring the trig ratios without mentioning sine, cosine, or tangent.  I loved the idea of tying into similar triangles and dilation.

But that was a few weeks ago and the whole conversation slipped my mind.

Until this weekend.

Right Triangle Trig was upon me... I started by looking at the MTBoS Search Engine, which is my go-to starting place for a new unit.  That led me to Tina C's blog and Lisa B's blog, both of which referenced a Geogebra applet similar to Michele's Desmos AB.

I'm not a huge Geogebra person but I liked the simplicity of the applet, so I decided to try it and do Desmos tomorrow.

Like Michele's Desmos AB, I decided to focus just on the opposite / hypotenuse ratio, letting them explore by creating different triangles and hopefully noticing that all of them had the same ratio (or very close.. rounding issues ya know...)

And things were going pretty okay...

Until they weren't :(

I had started them with exploring with angle A set to 35 degrees, then asked the following questions:

Holy moly - you would have thought I had asked them to perform major surgery! :(

It did not end well :(  Either they just used the applet and totally ignored the instructions to try to figure it out first OR they just made up some random number and ignored the applet OR they got mad because I wouldn't just tell them what to do to find the value.  (cue whiny voices... But Mrs. T!!! Do I multiply or divide????)

By the end of the first hour, I knew that tonight would be a blogging night... I needed to process what had happened.  I also needed to regroup and figure out how to fix it tomorrow.  Thankfully I have a long commute and it was a beautiful night for a walk, so I spent most of that time working through what had happened today.

Here's a summary of my conclusions...

Thought #1:  Students are not used to thinking like mathematicians - looking for patterns, making conjectures, then testing those conjectures. 

Thought #2:  As teachers, it can be super frustrating, especially when the whining starts.  This often results in throwing our hands up in the air and giving in to the "just tell me what to do" mentality

Thought #3:  I need to provide my students more chances to make sense of the mathematics.  Had I given them the equations of 3 / x = 0.573  and x / 6.5 = 0.573, they probably could have found x with minimal issue.  However, having to think about "Okay, this means that 3 divided by some number has to equal the ratio of 0.573" was quite the stretch for them.  

Thought #4:  I am a strong believer that students need to grapple with a concept, but for the sake of time and for the sake of my sanity, I don't do it often enough.  This has to change.

So tomorrow is a new day...

We are going to discuss the work from today, then go back to the Geogebra applet to try to "build" the trig table by looking at angles from 10 degrees to 80 degrees and the 3 ratios, then comparing those to an actual trig table.  Along the way, we will explore a few more problems and see if it goes any better.

Today, the struggle was real.  Both for my students and for myself.  I just hope it pays off in the end :)

Here are the files if you are interested.  Many thanks to Michele, Tina and Lisa for the inspiration behind these files!

H3.0 - Exploring Side Ratios (Day 1)

H3.1 - More Side Ratios (Day 2)
H3.1 - Practice Problems - Dry Erase Sheet

#Made4Math - Pythagorean Theorem

In Geometry, we have started our study of Right Triangles, so for the past week, I've been searching for activities for the Pythagorean Theorem, Geometric Mean, Right Triangle Trig, and more...

Of course, the one place I didn't look was in my OWN FILES!

Duh!

In my defense, the last time I taught Geometry was 2008 and out of a totally different textbook.  This was before I found the MTBoS, before I knew about Interactive Notebooks, etc.  To make it more difficult, I gave away all of my paper "master" copies a few years ago and my electronic files are labeled in the oh-so-helpful naming system such as "0708 L5.4 Activity".  At the time, I was pretty textbook driven, so that naming convention worked.... Now, now so much :)

So last week, I tweeted out to the MTBoS to see if anyone had a Pythagorean Theorem Question Stack.  If you don't know what a Question Stack is, it's kind of like an "around the room scavenger hunt" or "loop" activity, except it is at the student desks. 

I wanted to do some PT word problem practice and had resigned myself to having to make a set this weekend and laminate them for today.  But in a last ditch effort, I decided to look through my archives and low and behold, I found a set of cards in my own files!!

I do not claim ownership of these problems and honestly, I couldn't tell you where they even came from because I typed this back in 2007-08 school year! But, I thought it might come in handy for someone else :)

Click HERE to download the cards.  Print them 2 sided and cut apart! :)

A #Teach180 Reflection

Technically, this post is based on the #MTBoS12Days prompt list to share a #teach180 photo and lesson, but over the break, I didn't have my resources to really post a complete lesson.  Sadly, I didn't quite make my #MTBoS12Days challenge, but I blogged more in 2017 than I did the year before, so I'm declaring it a success! :)

#Teach180 Lesson Reflection

Today was our first day back with kids and I don't know about you, but the January Back to School day is almost more difficult than the August day!  In August, kids are fairly eager to get started, to see what their teacher / classes are like, but in January, the kids already know you and motivation can be lacking when it's super cold outside.  We are coming off a super cold spell - today was the first day above freezing since last Friday, so that didn't help at all!  Also, in August, I have spent weeks cleaning and decorating my room and preparing lessons, but in January, I haven't thought about school for 2 weeks, let alone try to remember what we were learning back in mid-December.

So I knew that I wanted today to be a semi-relaxing day, nothing majorly stressful, but something to get them thinking again to ease them back into the swing of things...

In Stat, I did a modified version (1st semester topics only) of the Wedding Story Activity that was shared a few years back at the AP Best Practices, but I didn't get any pictures of that :)

But in Geometry....  oh my, we had fun! :)

We finished up Triangle Congruence in December, which means we are starting this semester with Proofs.  At some point in the next few days, I'll post my proof plan, which is mostly stolen from the #MTBoS :)

To start them out, I wanted to emphasize logical thinking, so our warmup was the sequencing activity you see on the left.  They were given 12 photos, out of order, and as a group, they had to put the photos in a logical sequence.  (File)  I really enjoyed listening to their discussions as they argued about why their order was the best.

From there, we moved on to some other logic puzzles, including this Logic Area Puzzle that you see on the upper left.  I took this puzzle from the Holt textbook that we used YEARS ago at my school.  Again, I loved listening to the kids as they worked to remember perimeter vs area of squares and I'll admit I did not let them struggle the way I should have here.  :(

On the flip side of the Logic Area Puzzle was a "Flow Story Proof" from Math Teacher Mambo to help introduce the left to right logic of a flow proof.  I don't know that I would keep this activity in this sequence next year - I think I would rather use it as a warmup on the day I actually teach flow proofs.

The activity that I absolutely LOVED was the Word Proofs from Don't Panic, the Answer is 42 and you can see them on the lower left.  We didn't get very far into these, but I think they will be our warmups for the next several days.  The structured reasoning of here's where we start, here's each step (and the reason), and finally here's where we end was such an amazing way to think through the proof process!

The last few minutes of class was a 2nd semester Feedback exit ticket for Keep / Change / Start / Stop.  I'm not sure that I received a ton of useful information from them, but I brought them home to ponder some more over the next few days.  

It was such a good morning and one that I enjoyed quite a bit.  :)  Only 100 more days to go! :)

#MTBoSSundayFunday - Photo of the Week

Just a reminder that the #MTBoS Sunday Funday challenge is back!  This is a weekly blogging prompt that is hosted over at Julie's blog and this week's theme is "Photo of the Week"

Every week, Julie will push out a new topic, you blog about it and submit your blog post using this Google Form.  On Sunday, there will be a huge list of awesome blogs to go read! :) YAY!

As always, this is a no pressure blogging challenge, so if you don't feel like blogging, that's okay!  I've had many weeks already where I've failed at blogging, so I'm right there with you!  However, this week is one I just couldn't pass up :)

This week's theme is is "Photo of the Week", but this was a tough one for me.  I couldn't narrow it down to just one, so instead, I took a screenshot of this week's Instagram #teach180 posts! :)  (Can I just say that I LOVE using Instagram for my #teach180 posts... it's super simple to use and it's been a great tool for me to easily look back at my progress over the year!  Plus I shared it with my students, their parents, and my admin so they could follow us virtually!)

This week was great!  Last week was our Fall Break, so coming back on Monday was bit rough, but as you can see in the photos above, there were so many good moments this week!

To go chronologically, we'll start from the bottom right :)

Bottom right:  This was Monday in AP Stat.  After a break, we needed to do some mixed review over the chapter topics.  There were 3 problems, each one in a dry erase sleeve.  Students were up on the whiteboards working through the problems... so many good discussions!

Bottom center:  Tuesday in Geometry... You'll notice the little white box in the corner - we had a really active day!  This was a block day and we had color coded notes, some dry erase sleeve practice, and then a "Question Stack" set of cards on angle relationships.  So much awesomeness!

Bottom left:  Tuesday in Forensic Science... We had just finished a lab on the Bertillion Measurement System and read a great (yet lengthy) article on Bertillion, so we followed up with some summarization strategies.  This photo shows "Give One Get One", which is one of my favorite strategies!

Top right:  Wednesday in AP Stat... We had just finished z-scores and normality and were preparing for a quiz.  However, practice problems often get dull in worksheet format, so instead we did the same problems in card format.  Groups could choose to work on the vertical whiteboards or get one of the portable boards for their table.  So many good discussions and many of them scored perfect scores on the quiz!  yay!

** There isn't a photo for Thursday because my sophomores were taking the Pre-ACT and my Stat kids took their quiz... not a photo worthy day!

Top center:  Friday in Geometry... Thanks to the MTBoS, Friday's lesson plan was super simple... Katrina Newell (@MrsNewellsMath) had already blogged an Angle Addition / Angle Bisector foldable that all I had to do was print and use!  (Thanks Katrina!).  I do love foldables and add it to some color coded notes and you have a happy teacher on your hands!

Top left:  Friday in AP Stat... We've finished our unit in Stat, so next week we will be taking Test #2.  There were 10 stations posted around the room with 2 MC questions per station.  The students went from station to station working problems, checking with me, and going to the next station.  The hour flew by and on their exit ticket, several students even asked if we could do it again. :)

I know I didn't do quite what the prompt asked me to do, but it was such a good teaching week that I wanted to share! :)  Now to work on next week's lessons... hopefully it will be just as awesome as this past week! :)

#Made4Math - Conditional Statements

I know... it's not Monday... :)

This year is kicking me in the tush, BUT, I'm having a *blast* teaching Geometry.  I have some really awesome kids and I love the hands-on aspect of Geometry.  Last time I taught Geometry was about 10 years ago, which was well before I found the MTBoS and started using Interactive Notebooks :)

Anyway, on Sunday, I spent 5 hours on lesson plans for Monday only.... oh my goodness! :)  I tweeted out a comment that I could get a LOT more done if I didn't care how things looked or if I was willing to have a boring lesson. :)  Of course, having a new prep means lots of new foldables and creations and they have to look just right with a fun font! :)

Each Monday, my Geometry kids have a Mental Math Monday where I project a game card from the game 24 and instead of just coming up an expression to equal 24, they try to come up with all of the values from 1 to 24.  I decided to have them start doing it on their whiteboard sleeves and one group even made all of the values within the warm-up time (~5-7 minutes)

If you would like the Mental Math Monday file for your dry erase sleeves, click HERE

After we were done with our warmup time, it was on to conditional statements in Geometry!  I had scoured pinterest and the MTBoS Search Engine looking for some fun stuff to help my kids practice, but nothing was really catching my eye for their notes.  I ended up making a super simple foldable in a Word table that created a "flashcard" like foldable that was blank inside to allow us to take notes and write down the definitions.

If you would like the Word Document, click HERE

To follow it up, we practiced with the statement sort that I found on MissCalcul8's blog - See her post HERE

Then, we practiced some more using a free speed dating file from TPT, but I did it more as a Quiz Quiz Trade activity - See the activity HERE

And finally wrapped it up with a Kahoot!

All it all, it was a good day :)

Made4Math - Geometry Fun!!

It's been a while since I've written a Made4Math post, but I have a feeling this year will be a year FULL of new files and fun stuff :)

I am having a BLAST teaching Geometry this year.  The last time I taught it was about 10 years ago - before the #MTBoS entered my life and before I knew Interactive Notebooks even existed!!

This weekend has been kind of crazy.  I left school on Friday thinking I would get *so much* accomplished... HA! :)  By the time Sunday afternoon rolled around, I thought I might get an hour of work in while waiting on my mom to come down to go shopping.... I tinkered with it before she came down, then again after she left.  Before I knew it, I had spent close to 3 hours making a single flipping foldable!!! :)

Of course, I had to tweet it out last night... I am pretty darn proud of this thing! :)

I swear I printed it about 20 times before I got it to line up correctly and figure out how to "flip" it correctly on my printer!  Here's what the actual file looks like:

Download the file - PDF version

Once I had it figured out, I had to make a blank template for next time.  Here it is in Word format. :)

Today, I got on another kick of creativity and started working on this week's lesson plans.  We have a modified block schedule that has a traditional 6 period day on Monday, Thursday, and Friday and a block schedule that meets on Tuesday and Wednesday.  That means that tomorrow we head back to a block day with 100 minute periods.  

On block days, I try to do a lot of activities and I like to have the kids up and out of their seats at least once during the period to restart their brains.

For Geometry, one of the activities we will be doing tomorrow is a "Find Someone Who".  This is an activity that is often used as an ice-breaker, but I like to throw in a concept-twist.  The idea is to help my students remember all of the symbols and vocabulary we've worked on for the past week :)

Here is the PDF file if you want it! :)

Hope you've all had a wonderful and productive weekend!