I do exist!

I'm sorry I haven't kept up as well with my blog. It seems like the school year started and then I was slammed with work. It's nice to be busy, but holy cow. I just might burn out.

This year I am keeping journals for all sorts of different classes. I start my day with Algebra 2 with juniors. Its going all right but it isn't anything exciting. Then I have sophomores in Geometry and our notebooks have gotten a little crazy but all in good fun. Nothing like the Journal Wizard, but the kids are having fun creating notes. If only I could get them focused again. Then I have Theater Arts (cause it TOTALLY makes sense to have the math teacher in charge of Theater, right?) and I do a notebook in there as well, which has actually turned out pretty awesome. Its mostly vocabulary but we copy diagrams from the book for the kids to keep and then I have them do their character analysis stuff in there as well. Kinda cool. Then I have math models and thats not super exciting, we mostly just paste our worksheets into the book. I HAVE started to keep a notebook for Yearbook, where I try to keep notes on events, people, dates, etc so that I dont have to go searching for important yearbook stuff. Then I have a combined Algebra 2/Precalculus for seniors class. The Alg 2 is just a copy of the 1st period class but in Precal we have done some various vocabulary before we started doing our worksheet booklets.
Last but not least, I have my Alg 1 class (please let me know if you've been blessed with a late in the day algebra 1 class schedule, I'd really like to know your tricks for survival). This is going fairly well. I've dipped into some Common Core lessons (that coincide with our state standards) that I feel help define vocabulary better and kind of tie up our discovery modules. I also employ many "four corner" models to help students represent functions. Hard to say how this is all working, but the students tend to like having a notebook to use. I encourage the notebook use by asking them to look in their notes before they ask questions, or I will tell them what section to look in before I head their way. I dont mind helping, but they need to learn how to look things up.

That's all I have for now. I could tell you that I will post pictures soon, but the days are long and my focus is making sure the kids are all right. Back to grading for me! Good luck with your classes! We're almost to Christmas Break!!!

Algebra 1 coordinate plane

Today I attempted the coordinate foldable as suggested by ms Haley. It seemed to go all right but my kids are slow. The cutting process was slower than I'd like, and this was after trimming off excess sides. Tonight I stayed after work a couple hours so I could cut out tomorrows activity so it won't take so long, I hope.
I don't know how this is all going to work out but I keep plugging along. Being super brilliant at creating foldables or creating a notebook centered lesson is a challenge and is becoming a little overwhelming. I'm glad I have resources (journal wizard and math=love, along with other people i come across here and there) but doing this for 2 sections of alg2, alg1, geo, precal/alg2, and now math models... I'll admit I'm feeling a little in over my head.
I can do this! Worse comes to worse, I throw cscope in there when I'm burnt and try again next concept. The best part that keeps me going is that only the algebra 1 kids are being tested this year so we can "enjoy math" in the rest of our classes. I tell the kids "it's a good thing" but maybe they can hear the little slip of worry in my voice.
Another class I'm trying note booking in is Theater Arts. So far so good. We just do basic notes, but it keeps the kids awake and attentive. Add to that our funny improv moments and its a nice break in the day. If only all classes were that easy.  Well, I have to figure out geometry layout for tomorrow. I'll try to get pictures posted so y'all can see what I am doing this year. I'm especially excited to see what we can come up with in geo since they are my best notebookers so far. Booyah!

First week down

The first week is complete and so far, all my projects have gone in our composition notebooks. I know I can do this. I think I can. It may not be perfect but my goal is to keep going. Hopefully I don't mess up some kids along the way.
That is all for now but I hope to get some time to post pictures of what we're doing. I have a really full schedule so please be patient with my limited posts. Have a great week!

Homework thoughts

It crosses our mind at the beginning of each year. How am I going to handle homework this year? I'd like to get to the point that I know how I want to handle things and just stick with that. There's different philosophies on homework. I think students should have extra practice outside of classwork. My beef is dealing with how to grade homework. I used to go through each problem and grade it that way. That got overwhelming pretty quick and soon I was swimming in paperwork. Near the end of last year, I would look at the paper and verify answers and see that they had shown work and base a "completed vs. not completed" grade that ranged from 0-100. 0 meant they didn't do work or show work. 100 meant they showed all the work and have mostly correct answers. We would then go over answers and methods that way kids who didn't know what to do, would at least get a chance to see what they needed to do. Its not the most perfect method but encourages students to try. Every so often I would have them turn in an assignment (about once every two weeks) for a closer look at their work and a more detailed grade.
Today I saw a re post from http://livelovemath.blogspot.com/2013/08/throwback-thursday-homework.html. She talks about how she handles work and relates it to quizzes. I'm liking her method and am interested in doing something along those lines. I want to instill responsibility and accountability in my students, but need to allow for some pretty interesting homes lives.
One thought I had for this year was to do a "no homework slip". Last year I toyed with the idea of a missing homework binder but that didn't make the end of the first week. I also know I need to collect work for record keeping. So i'm trying to put all my ideas together.
Want to 1) have homework to grade 2) scan homework for student files 3) not have to deal with late work 4) have a way to track missing homework 5) periodically do a detailed grading to make sure kids are doing what they're supposed to. Perhaps I can walk around and take a picture with my ipad and load the homework to Three Ring. Then have the missing homework slip that I take a picture of and email that to parents. HMMMM. Ideas are forming. Wish I could think this well earlier in the day. At least I got my ideas down. :) What do y'all do for homework? Are you into detailed grading or are you a skimmer? Let me know what you do!

Syllabus thoughts

Many teachers I've seen have decided to change things up a bit and go from a several page syllabus to a brochure style format. The format examples can be seen on Pinterest and through searches on Google.
I really liked the idea from Mrs. Hester's blog (http://mrshester.blogspot.com/2013/08/updated-parent-handout.html) and am tempted to use that format this year. My intention is to have a brochure they can take home, then have a brochure they can put in their journal (to deal with the times they can look at the syllabus for an answer).
When I get that all put together, I'll get that posted. I hope to finish out last year's stuff so that I can be ready to post for this upcoming year. Are you excited yet? I'm not sure how things will go, but I'm starting to get excited to see my students again. What are your plans for your syllabus this year?

What I learned on my vacation

It feels like it's been a long time since I posted, but really it hasn't. I forgot I posted while I was camped out on my in-laws sofa. The best thing a person can do is purchase or inherit a quality sofa. You never know who might need to sleep on it.

It was a good vacation. Saw my sister get married, visited with family, saw a couple national parks, and drove A LOT of miles. MANY miles.

I learned many things, like how to crash a 4-wheeler, that my sons are incredible strong, that bison don't care if they are holding up traffic. All good things.


The trip was also nice because I had the opportunity to learn about ADHD and Autistic children and what it takes to accommodate and help them face their challenges.
We go to workshops and learn about children who have a hard time in class. Then we go to work and are expected to know exactly what to do or how to accommodate and all we have are IEP's and Sp.Ed. plans that give us a little info but nothing like what we really need to fully understand what to do. There might be some who have had personal experience that are able to adapt quickly and then there's the rest of us who have only professional development to rely on.
I appreciated how my sister-in-law took the time to tell me about how they found out her children needed assistance. What their personalities were like, how they were able to make accommodations and she gave me the opportunity to better understand what some of my own students are up against, be it a learning challenge, or challenges with teachers who didn't understand or wouldn't take the time to understand.
It was fascinating to gain this knowledge and I hope it put it to good use this year in my notebooking, and also in being more compassionate towards my challenged students.

That's all I have tonight. I'll get back to posting my last year's efforts and then it will be time to start planning hard-core for this upcoming year. Still don't have a schedule and I hope my students don't get screwed with a 6th period math class since that class is only 40 min. long. Ok. Time for sleep!

Algebra 1 - linear equations review

I think Ms. Haley showed me this one. It's got pretty much everything you need to know about linear equations.

The source for this foldable is also from I Speak Math - NAGS Foldable. She has a file you can print up but do this well ahead of time as your printer may offset the result. I tried to print that morning and thought things were ok, until we went to write on the inside and everything was upside down. There was some reprinting involved and it took away from the time we should have been writing things down. "I Speak Math" used this for notes, I used it for review. The students liked all the information that was on here, but in the end, didn't like this foldable much saying it was too busy and hard to find information. "I Speak Math" also had her students write notes on the back for review but since this WAS my review, we used that side to paste down in our notebooks.

Since I like the info on here, I think some modifications we can do would be to make it a multi-page booklet so the info is broken up. You should probably check out the "I Speak Math" site to see what she wrote seeing as yet again, I didn't write anything down. (Don't worry, one day I actually do!)

 

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