Day 36- A long day

Here's a sort of day in the life on my really long day today! 

5:30- alarm clock
5:39- stumble out of bed
6:40- leave home
6:45- enter classroom and begin grading the paper I should have done before leaving yesterday as well as print papers to be copied and make an answer key for next week's warm up
7:25- inquire with secretary re: sub for tomorrow
7:28- realize breakfast hasn't been delivered to my classroom; find out it will be late
7:30- children arrive and begin working in Math 8
7:45- collect and count donations for our grade's donation to the March of Dimes while kids are working on integer boot camp
8:00- lay out procedures for tomorrow's walkathon since I'll be absent and poor sub has 5 pages of plans to read over. 
8:10- go over homework with students
8:25- continue stacking cups investigation
9:00- planning period begins; start counting up donations and filling out paperwork to turn money in to the office; roll coins
9:20- turn in money
9:25- check mailbox
9:30- furiously grade more papers before a meeting
9:50- meeting with math team to plan upcoming unit
10:20- first group of Algebra students arrive
10:30- escort Algebra students to lunch; eat lunch
10:55- last bathroom break of the day, check mailbox again
11:00- pick up kids from lunch; teach Algebra.  Today we did a warm up, checked homework (lots of questions on these literal equations), and worked in our teams to solve literal equations using task cards.
12:15- classes switch; repeat Algebra.
1:40- classes switch; French students arrive.  Today we did a warm up, took a short quiz on pronouns, and used our classroom object vocabulary to ask and answer questions on paper and then with a inside-outside circle type structure.
2:25- school day is over, dismissal process begins
2:40- all students are finally dismissed
2:45- staff picture
2:55- school wide department meetings (as opposed to the grade level department meeting in the AM)
3:30- meeting ends, discussion ensues about tomorrow's conference
4:10- return to classroom to grade papers, lay out materials for sub, write up my plans on the front whiteboard (I always leave VERY specific instructions for my students so they can't tell me, "But the sub didn't tell us..."), clean off my desk, track boot camp data, prepare materials for the walkathon, etc
7:20- leave school

That was a killer day.  I hope this NCTM conference is worth it!

Day 35- Observation

I was observed by my principal this morning doing my take on the stacking cups lesson I saw here.  We just finished data collection today and started graphing, so I'm eager to see how the analysis piece goes tomorrow and what feedback my principal has. 

Day 34- New Statistics

I just have to capture an unusual conversation I had today.  My students completed a "Numbers About Me" project in August as a cover to their ISNs.  One of my students told me today, "You know, I'm going to have to update this in January.  One of my statistics will be outdated then."  When I asked which one, she pointed to the drawing of her siblings.  "There's going to be a new baby."  That's the kind of precious thing I expect to hear in elementary school, but not in middle school.  I told her to keep her cover as it was a snapshot of her life in August. 

Day 33- First MIR

This year, my school started a new paperwork procedure for discipline.  Now, we have forms called "Minor Incident Reports" or MIRs that we fill out in triplicate for any offenses.  Each form also requires a parent contact.  The idea is to keep parents better informed as to any discipline issues so that they can be supportive.  I had to write my first MIR today for a student who I don't teach who was acting up in the hallway.  Isn't that just the way? 

Here's hoping the rest of the year continues to go as smoothly as the first 7 weeks have! 

Day 32- Can we keep working on this?

Mountain Climber, an activity I posted about earlier this week, is seriously a gold mine for me.  Yesterday, my kids were disappointed when I told them we'd already spent two days on it and we wouldn't be working on it for a third day in a row.  Their faces looked like I'd cancelled Christmas.  Who am I to tell kids they can't do challenging math problems?  "On Thursday," I promised, "we can finish.  We just need to do something slightly different today."  So, the kids got back with their groups and labored their way through the final tiers of Linear Programming Mountain Climber.  Rarely discouraged, they worked tirelessly to get correct answers.  Some of them worked on problems over and over to find and correct mistakes.  That mountain kept them working.  I didn't have groups give up; they kept going and going until we ran out of time.

Moral of the story: sketch a crude mountain, find some playing pieces, and come up with a series of problems that increase in difficulty.  Watch in amazement.  

Day 31- Subjects and verbs, oh my!

This week, we've started learning grammar in French class.  It started off so simply, I didn't anticipate the number of problems my students would have.  So far, they just need to be able to identify a subject and a verb.  They're having some trouble doing that in English, so the French is interesting!  

I guess they don't mind learning grammar! 



While the kids were waiting for dismissal, they asked me if I liked the color green.  They pointed out that all of my dry erase markers on the ledge were green and there were lots of other green things in my room.  Then, one of the girls pointed out how everything in my room is color coded (the one organizational thing I have going for me), and someone else said my room looks like a rainbow.  What a polite way to point out that I am not an owner of a "pinnable" classroom!  :)  My kids are gems, and I wouldn't trade them for anything! 

Day 30- Discovering slope-intercept form

Students in Math 8 graphed some functions last week by using function tables to evaluate the function for several x values and plotting the points.  Today, we discovered slope is the coefficient of x and the y-intercept is represented by the constant.  Tomorrow, we'll summarize these findings with a foldable. 

Day 29- Mountain Climber

I LOVE mountain climber and so do my kids.  They get competitive (which is not the point, but it happens anyway) and they get really insistent on being right.  I love that this activity makes them attend to precision and has them talking about math.

Here's a picture of the board and a link to my original post on the topic. 

Day 28- Linear Programming

I'm trying to talk less this year.  Lead less, even.  Coach more. 

Today, we spent an hour working in teams on 2 to 3 linear programming word problems.  I really enjoyed listening to the conversations that groups had and I tried to be as unhelpful as possible to make the students rely on themselves.  They did a very good job at this.  One question came up often at the beginning of their work time, but once they made it past that stumbling block, they rolled through the remaining steps and problems successfully.  As with any other year, the hardest part of linear programming for students is taking the words and translating them into inequalities. 

I used my stoplight cups today for groups to signal when they needed help and they were pretty well-received.  :)

Day 27- Homework chat

Today wasn't particularly photo-worthy.  The most remarkable thing today was how much time I spent going over the previous night's homework.  This year, I've saved a lot of time going over homework by having students go over their work with a partner and then ask questions that they couldn't figure out with their partner.  We went over every one of the six questions that I'd assigned.  Every one. 

As much as that derails a lesson plan, it was a good use of our day.  My kids hadn't grasped the idea that a system of linear equations has an infinite number of solutions (unless it has none).  We had a long discussion around this point and one of my girls said, "I'm glad we spent so much time on this homework because last night I really didn't get how a system of inequalities could have infinitely many solutions and now I see it."  OK, time well spent! 

Day 26: Comining Like Terms and Distributive Property

Thanks to Julie and Nora for this idea.  My students were engaged, discussed the ideas, and really got the concept of multiplying the number outside the parentheses by the terms inside without me stating it explicitly.   

Day 25: L'annuaire de la classe

We're learning our numbers up to 30 in French class and today I had the students interview each other to make a phone book of the class. 

I gave each student a small card with a French first name and a French phone number.  I gave them different names than the French names they use in class so that they might have to practice saying, spelling, and writing unfamiliar names.  Students had to ask each other for their name, how to spell the name, and what their phone number was.  Then they met a new partner and recorded more in their "phone book."  We spent about 15 minutes on this and it was our first extended period of time in class that I expected students to speak entirely in French.  They did pretty well; I heard bits of English, but overall they tried hard not to! 

Here's an example of the cards the students used: