My Favorite Friday #9

Welcome to another awesome week of #MyFavFriday, featuring posts from around the blogosphere!

Don't forget to submit YOUR #MyFavFriday post HERE

Now on to Week 9's posts...

@reminoodle - Hilarious Moments of the Week

@druinok - My (current) Favorite App

Beth - Super Tool - random group generator

@tbanks1906 - Matrices Pass Around

@misscalcul8 - Math Poker

Kristin - Properties Quiz Quiz Trade “Game” + More

@gwaddellnvhs - #MyFavFriday: Dropbox

@4mulafun Jennifer Smith-Sloane - Instagram Learning

Julie Reulbach, @jreulbach - Negative Numbers - What's Your Sign?

My (current) Favorite App

Over the summer, I got an iPad. I actually got a great deal on it (Thanks, craigslist!) but up until now, I've not used it for much. I have a few apps on there, a few games and a few that are work related.

I guess I should back up a few years.... last time I taught Algebra 2, I decided to start making Jing screencasts for my students to help them review for tests. This really went over very well with my students, so I kept it up all year and the kids really loved it. Last year, I had plans to create similar screencasts for AP Stat, but I had moved to a new building and the technology did not play well at all. So I worked with a Bamboo tablet and a microphone at home to create Jing screencasts, but the Bamboo tablet wasn't the easiest thing in the world to write on. Then, as I got more and more interested in flipping the classroom, I decided I wanted an iPad, which led to a LOT of craigslist surfing :)

So, finally I found a great deal and off I went. Except that I haven't used it. (Other than sudoku *hehe*). So this week in AP, I decided I was going to try a screencast on the iPad to see how it worked. I had downloaded a few of the apps and my favorite, by far....

Educreations is a FREE app that lets you record multi-page screencasts, insert images, etc. It also has a web application where you can create screencasts via your computer. Other than some pre-planning on my part, it was so easy and within about 30 minutes, I had 3 screencasts created. Click HERE to see one of the screencasts I made this week.

Yup... It's a keeper! :)

What are other MUST-HAVE apps???

#Made4Math Monday - Week 12

Don't forget to submit your #Made4Math project HERE

@aanthonya - How far is Sacramento from Austin?

@druinok - Foldables and Stations

Kristin - Scientific Notation Jigsaw Tarsia Puzzle

@4mulafun Jennifer Smith-Sloane - Creation Overload

Beth - Equations Up and About

The Math Idea Drop - Absolute Value Card Sort

Julie Reulbach, @jreulbach - Foldables - Place Value, Exponents, and Scientific Notation

@misscalcul8 - Domain and Range Lesson

@_CindyWallace_ - Bulletin Board Idea for HS Seniors' Class

Made4Math - Foldables and Stations

Wowzers! Can you believe that we've been doing this for 12 weeks? Sometimes I wonder if I'll make it through the year, but honestly, the idea of #Made4Math helps to keep me going. It forces me to blog every week AND it forces me to try to be creative in some way every week.

Project #1 - Stations Activity
Last year, Julie had posted about using acrylic frames for her stations activities. Since I like to do stations, I was intrigued. In the past, my students had really struggled with stations because no matter what, someone couldn't see the problem well enough to work it. With Julie's idea, everyone can see the problem, which I love! I finally got the chance to use my frames this week.

I printed off 2 sets of 4 problems, one set in orange, one in pink. The right side of my room got one color, the left side got the other color. Each group started with a problem and after about 10 minutes, we rotated within their color groups. It worked out well, students could see the problem, and the frames gave it an air of "official-ness" :)

Project #2 - Writing Equations Foldable
I have to say I am VERY proud of this one. We were working on writing equations of a line and I decided to do a foldable. Since I'm slightly OCD, I wanted everything to line up well and I finally got it to work. It was so much fun to see students using their foldable all week :)

If you want the file, click HERE

Have a happy Monday!! :)

New Blogger Initiative - Week 4

Welcome to the fourth and final week of the New Blogger Initiative. Over the past month, we have met so many new math bloggers and I am so happy to have been involved in this project! Thank you to Sam and Julie for getting this project off the ground!

Now it's time to introduce you to my last batch of new bloggers. Please take a moment, visit their blogs, and leave a comment for them.

Kristin - Hoppe Ninja Math Teachers Blog

Kristin (@kristinabc123) has a blog named "Hoppe Ninja Math Teacher Blog". The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled "Search and Shades" and the author sums it up as follows: "Search and shades are great for practice, reviewing, and remediation. I've bought the books and made my own!"

A memorable quotation from the post is: "I love Search and Shades, and most of the kids do, too."

My thoughts... Wow! I have used the "quilt block" books before, but I've never thought about sitting down and making my own. A huge thank you to Kristin for sharing these very cool worksheets!

Rebecka Peterson - Epsilon-Delta

Rebecka Peterson (@RebeckaMozdeh) has a blog named "Epsilon-Delta". The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled "Writing Piece-wise Functions" and the author sums it up as follows: "I stole ideas from Maggie and Bowman to review my Pre-Calc students on peice-wise functions and function transformations. We had some great ah-ha moments, and students did better on this standard than I've ever seen them do on previous tests."

A memorable quotation from the post is: "Success! Finally!"

My thoughts... Rebecka's post comes at a perfect time for me as I'm smack dab in the middle of piecewise functions in Algebra 2. It's also a perfect tie in to practice the parent functions and transformations that we've done recently. I love how the blog-o-sphere does my lesson plans for me!

Mr. Carby - Change Over Time

Mr. Carby (@NateilCarby) has a blog named "Change Over Time". The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled "Favorite Classroom Phrases" and the author sums it up as follows: "A brief glimpse into how I communicate with my students. I'm a little rough around the edges. I'll get it right one day."

A memorable quotation from the post is: "I understand what you're saying, but then I don't understand what you're saying"

My thoughts... I have to agree with Mr. Carby about the memorable quotation. That one is my favorite on his list as well :) I think I might try this with my students. I think it could be very telling to ask the students what my common phrases are.

Bruce Ferrington - Authentic Inquiry Maths

Bruce Ferrington (@BruceFerrington) has a blog named "Authentic Inquiry Maths". The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled "The Difference Between Area and Perimeter" and the author sums it up as follows: "Kids get easily confused about the difference between area and perimeter. So I asked them to give me some ideas about how to avoid confusing the two very different concepts.."

A memorable quotation from the post is: "Seems just about every text book you open introduces area and perimeter at the same time and from my experience this often leads to confusion for the kids."

My thoughts... This is the second time recently that I've read about the confusion with similar concepts when they are presented at the same time. I think I will definitely have to be more careful about this as I teach concepts throughout the year.

Carey Lehner - I Am A Teacher. This Is My Journey

Carey Lehner (@careylehner) has a blog named "I Am A Teacher. This Is My Journey.". The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled "Our PLC Group" and the author sums it up as follows: "This post describes the PLC goals that our group has this year."

A memorable quotation from the post is: "I am looking forward to improving my teaching and hopefully that will impact student learning. I believe this PLC group will allow me to do this."

My thoughts... Carey is the second person recently to recommend the book Embedded Formative Assessment. This book was already on my Wish List, but it just moved further up the list. Thanks Carey!

My Favorite Friday #8

Welcome to another awesome week of #MyFavFriday, featuring posts from around the blogosphere!

Don't forget to submit YOUR #MyFavFriday post HERE

Now on to Week 8's posts...

Julie Reulbach, @jreulbach - Hanging Holders for Absent Work

@druinok - I <3 YOU

@misscalcul8 - Favorite Moments

Simplifying Radicals @noraoswald - Problem experts

Terrance Banks - @tbanks1906 - My Fav Friday - Graphing Cartoons

@reminoodle - Student Created Math Puns

@4mulafun Jennifer Smith-Sloane - Organization Favs

@_CindyWallace_ - Rafflecopter to Raise Test Scores

School of Fisher - Dry Erase on Desks

Courtney Steketee - #myFavFriday- Middle Schoolers

Beth - Satisfying Moments

@aeakland - What Time Is It?

@luvbcd - First Day Activities

Ladies and Gentlemen, drum roll please.....

Because MY favorite thing this Friday is YOU!

That's right - YOU!

Why, you ask?

Because YOU are amazing!

Seriously though, this has been a doozy of a week. But, at the end of the day, I know that I have YOU, the math-twitter-blog-o-sphere to keep me sane.

Highlights from this week...
The Global Math Department meeting this week was *A*M*A*Z*I*N*G!! Thanks Megan, Lisa, and all of the presenters this week! (ACK! I'm supposed to present next week!?!?!?!?)

My foldable in Algebra 2 worked! (Thanks Julie for rocking your foldable talk and thanks to @approx_normal and Monica for proofreading it for me)

Notebooks are going smoothly in both Algebra 2 and AP Stat. Even had a student teacher come observe today and the boys at her group did such a great job of explaining what they liked about the notebook.

Back to School night was tonight and I must give a Shout-Out to @LaurenDeReche for her Angry Birds Grading screen that I flat out stole :) (Sorry Lauren! But you were a hit!)

....

In general, this was a crappy week. We had our personal family losses of last week plus additional losses this week in our school family. But, sometimes loss can help you cherish what you have. And this week, I choose to cherish YOU.

Each of you have helped to make me a better teacher, a better friend, and a better person.

Thank you for sharing your lives, your strategies, your struggles, and your triumphs.

YOU are my #MyFavFriday