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!!!
