Annie Forest

 (I found this here )

An annual tradition in my district is taking the 8th grade students to Springfield, IL (the state capitol).  This is my first year teaching exclusively 8th grade, so I got to go along.  We had to be at school at 5:30AM and got back to school at 9:00PM!  Those kiddos had an endless supply of candy to eat and energy to burn!  It was a long day, but fun.  We even got a tour of the state treasure's vault. The kids seemed to really like the trip-- although they said their favorite parts were the 3 hour bus ride and dinner at The Golden Corral.  I guess if I was 13, those might be my favorites too. :) When we were in the capitol building I took a picture of the inside of the dome.  I'm wondering if I can revisit this picture during a math lesson.  We have a unit coming up about transformations (rotations, reflections, translations).  I wonder if it could fit in somehow.  Suggestions?

Asking good questions is an important way to see what your students are thinking and to get them to move forward in their ability to justify their answers. There is a great article that was published in the NCTM journal, Teaching Mathematics in the Middle School .  It's called: The article talks about two ways of asking questions.  Funneling (not so great) and Focusing (better!).  Here is my interpretation of the main theme of their article: My Example of Funneling: Teacher- What is 12 x 6 Student- I don’t know Teacher- Well, what is 6 times 2? Student- 12 Teacher- Put down the 2 and carry the one Teacher- What is 6 times 1? Student- 6 Teacher- Add 1 Student- 7 Teacher- So, what is 12 x 6? My Example of Focusing: Teacher- How can we multiply 12 x 6? Student- I don’t know. Teacher- Well, what do you know about multiplication? Student- It’s repeated addition. Teacher- Okay, so what could you do? Student- Well, I know ...

When I teach irrational numbers, of course I have to include pi! (by the way, I have memorized 30 digits and also have pi earrings) One way for students to grasp the idea of non-repeating, never ending numbers is to actually look at a "piece" of pi.   This activity that I developed allows each student to get their own 100 digits of pi. They color their piece and then I tape them all together for a visual representation-- we all look at it and are amazed that all of our work is only a small piece of the actual number (*mind blown*). There are enough "pieces" for 102 students (the most I had one year when I did this activity).  Enjoy!

I bought this decal from Etsy and I get tons of compliments.  For only $2.49 plus shipping, it's a deal.  If you are a math nerd like me, you might want to check it out! My cat, Lily, even likes it. :)

Have you seen this or similar things on Pinterest or Facebook?  They are pretty popular.  Usually, I love a good math joke...    One thing that bothers me about the card above is, well, it's not true!  Okay, not everyone is factoring trinomials on a daily basis... but figuring out a missing number?  That happens many times each day.  How many more times can I hit the snooze (9 mins each) before I'll be running late?  How many extra shots of espresso can I get in my latte if I have $5?  Do I need to stop and get gas this morning if I still have 1/4 of a tank of gas and I usually get about 25 mpg?  And these are just questions you might ask in the first few hours of the day... ALGEBRA!  I guess people aren't setting up complex systems of equations to solve such life problems, but still, they are finding a missing value.  They are doing algebra. Now, I'm not here to debate if my above examples are actually just problem so...

I just heard about something called The Hour of Code .  I am currently doing a unit with my 8th graders about transformations.  I think this topic goes along great with programming, so I'm going to try it!  I'm excited to introduce my students to programming.  If they like it, it even gives them something that they could do over Winter Break! First of all, I am planning on doing a lesson that I found by Robert Kaplinsky about Ms. Pac Man .  Then, during the week of December 9-15, I am going to use some of the resources from "The Hour of Code."  Here are my tentative plans Day 1: (maybe Mon Dec 9) Watch intro video http://csedweek.org Do "unplugged" lesson. (Tie it in with transformations?!) http://csedweek.org/sites/csedweek/files/CSEDrobotics.pdf Day 2: (maybe Tues Dec 10) Introduction to "Scratch" and do self-guided tutorial to make holiday card. http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/?tip_bar=hoc Follow-up...