End of Year Reflection

As the end of the year approaches, I like to look back and reflect on things that have gone really well this year and some things that, well, haven't.  I started the year with three big goals that I wanted to accomplish: using math notebooks, learning stations, and math bucks (you can read my post about them here.)  Overall, I was really pleased with how I accomplished those goals.

1) Math Notebooks

I am THRILLED with how my math notebooks turned out!  I loved how they required students to keep everything in one place, and because everything was glued in it meant that they weren't losing the notes we had taken throughout the year.  I am able to tell students to look up something we've already covered that they might have forgotten (integer rules, or common fraction to decimal conversions) which puts the responsibility back on them instead of me. 

I used their notebooks as a quiz grade at the end of each quarter, which helped keep them responsible for them.  I still had a few students who would spend the last two weeks of the quarter desperately updating their notebooks because they hadn't kept it up to date throughout the nine weeks, but overall they did very well with them.  One thing that I will make sure to focus on a bit more next year is the table of contents - my students didn't understand how to fill that in correctly using their own notebooks, and often would wait until the end of the nine weeks to come in and copy mine.  It wasn't until the third nine weeks that I realized this was happening (when I hadn't updated mine and they were all in a panic because they didn't know how to do it).  Next year I'll make sure we really cover this at the beginning of the year.

I am going to try to do a really in depth post on our math notebooks over the summer - I'm even thinking about including a video so you can see EVERYTHING we did with them!

2) Learning Stations

How I organize stations (ignore the voting in the corner - that was for something else)

This is probably the one thing that didn't go as well as I had hoped.  I started off they year strong, but about the time I started slacking with the blog, I started slacking with stations as well.  It's a shame too because my students really enjoyed them and got a lot out of them.  I created quite a few activities for the stations that worked really well and that I will continue to use.  Whenever I did stations I tried to have one technology station, one game station, one independent practice station, and one partner practice station.  I was really happy with the technology and game stations I came up with, but really struggled to come up with meaningful independent and partner practice activities.  On top of that, creating the technology activities and games was also very time consuming.  I am hoping that next year, since I have some of these already created, it will be easier to implement consistently.

3) Math Bucks

You can find math bucks here, on Teachers Pay Teachers - (not my product)

I was happy with how using the math bucks in class went.  It was a very effective classroom management tool and my students loved it. One thing I did up changing part way though the year was the cost of certain things (mainly right or wrong on tests, and hints).  I realized around Dec/Jan I wasn't handing them out as often as I really needed to for them to be effective, so I dropped the 'price' to reflect that.  I have gotten better since then, and I think I will start with the original prices next year, and just really try to make sure I am handing them out more often.

 

 

One thing that did not go as well this year as I had hoped was this blog.  I got very overwhelmed around the beginning of the new year with my husband deployed, the graduate classes I was taking, math department chair, our impending move back to the states (woo hoo!), and the roll out of all the new technologies (1:1 laptops and new SmartBoards).  I was really hoping to have a new post at least every week, and that obviously didn't happen.  I would like to use this summer to try and post about some of the things I did this year but just couldn't find the time to write about.

What are some things you're reflecting on that went well, or maybe not so well?

~Brittany~

 



Rates and Ratios Intro

Happy New Year!  I had all of these great plans to write lots of posts over winter break, but that obviously didn't happen (as I bet most of you would have figured).  It was very restful and much needed - especially the trip back to the States to be with family for the holidays. (Not to mention I got to go shopping in stores where the clothes fit! Japan is full of petite women, and at 5'9" I just don't fit that category.) 

Anyways, I managed to time it this year so we finished a chapter right before break and started a new chapter yesterday (our first day back) - Ratios and Rates.  I came up with a really cute idea for our intro to this (or at least I think it's cute) for our math notebooks. 

We cut out three similar ovals from different colored paper (I preprinted the ovals onto the paper) and then glued them down into our notebook so they were on top of each other.  On the largest oval we wrote ratios, the definition, how you can represent it and some examples.  Then, on the next oval we wrote rates (since a rate is a type of ratio it fits within the first oval), the definitition and an example.  On the third oval we wrote unit rates (since that is a type of rate and therefore ratio, it fits within the other two ovals), the definition and an example. 

This was a really quick, easy and colorful addition to our notebooks that gives students a visual representation of how the three relate to each other.  Last year I had a lot of students who thought rates and ratios were two completely different things - so I'm hoping this will help clear up that misconception.

Does anyone else have any cool ideas they want to share about ratios and rates?

~Brittany~

Fractions, Decimals and Percents, oh my!

I know, I know - it's been forever! I have been so busy with work that most days when I got home I didn't even want to think about writing about it - and then, on those days where I was feeling it, I either had blogger's block or forgot to take pictures of the cool things we were working on in class!

This has been a busy few months for me, but I'm very proud of how our math notebooks are coming along.  My only problem is that I'm running out of space!  A lot of my students only have a few pages left in the first section of their notebooks, and we are already using the 2nd and 3rd sections for other things.  My plan was to use the first section for notes and foldable, the second section for vocabulary, and the third section for warm ups.  I have not been using the vocabulary section like I wanted to, so I think I am just going to have students move to that section when they run out of room in the first section.  Next year I think I will either request a five subject notebook, or find a different way to work the vocab section (maybe a running definition sheet instead of Frayer's model?)

We have covered quite a few topics since my last post - integer operations, writing algebraic equations and expressions, solving algebraic equations (one and two step), and graphing functions.  My plan is to go back over winter break and cover each of those in a separate post. 

Right now, we are working on converting between fractions, decimals and percents.  We made a booklet showing how to convert between each that students could reference later.  I also gave students some benchmark fractions that I expect them to know (1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/8, and 1/10).  These are some very standard fractions that make student's lives so much easier if they just know them, so I give them to students and we practice them.



Front of the booklet with notes on the side



Inside of booklet - we wrote how to inside the front flap, and examples on the other side.

Then, because I LOVED how simple this was, we used this idea from Math = Love. (I could not for the life of me find the exact post - I originally saw this on pintrest, but it didn't link to the original post.) Anyways, I added the conversion back to decimals because I feel students need to know it, but didn't add the other two because I thought it would mess up the simplicity of it. 



Conversion Triangle

Finally, we played a game I made up called 'Bazinga!'  I loosely based it off of the game, 'Kaboom!' created by Carol S. that I purchased last year from Teachers Pay Teachers and used for another topic. There were quite a few things I changed about the game to better fit my style of teaching, so I decided I needed to change the name.

In Bazinga, there are three types of cards - Bazinga! cards, Double Points cards, and the question cards.  If students pull a Bazinga card they lose all of their points. If they pull a double points card they get to take it back to their seat and use it whenever they want to double the points they earn that round (not all of their points).  Finally, the question cards can be on whatever topic you want - this time I wrote either a decimal, a percent or a fraction on the cards.  Students had to come up with the other two forms of the number. (So if a decimal was on the card, they had to write an equivalent fraction and percent.)  The first team to hold up their whiteboard with the correct answer earns 20 points, the second team earns 10 points, and the third team earns 5 points (they keep track of their own score).  The first team also selects the next card from the deck.  Students love it (especially when the winning team pulls a Bazinga! card and loses all of their points), it provides great practice, and immediately allows me to see who is/is not getting it.  I can also immediately correct any misunderstandings and confusions that come up.  I am selling this game in my Teachers Pay Teachers store - just click the picture below.

For homework I had students fill in a chart that had three columns (fraction, decimal or percent).  I gave one form of the number, and had the students give the missing two. If you would like a copy of this, just click on the picture below! 



Homework Assignment

We are continuing to work on this, but I found that the game helped most students grasp the concept. It was amazing the amount of growth I saw from the beginning of the game to the end of the game.  What are some ways you teach changing from decimals to percents to fractions?

~Brittany~

Starting Integers

When I had my students write their goals at the beginning of the year, I had quite a few of them that said they wanted to learn how to add negative numbers (or something else to do with integers).  After reading those, I was really excited to start our unit on integers.



Our Foldable - Click Here for a Copy



 

In our standards, 7th grade is where students are introduced to integers for the first time, so I wanted to make sure we started with activities that would give students an understanding of integers.  I had the students make this foldable for their notebook where we looked at opposite versus absolute value.  Students are constantly mixing the two up, and always giving an opposite when they are look for absolute value.  We discussed that absolute value was the distance for zero, and as usually a lot of the students claim that absolute value just turns the number positive, so we had a really good discussion on why it became positive.  My students all know about Ferris Bueller's Day Off now - I really wanted to show them the clip of trying to turn the odometer backwards, but I'm not sure the language would be appropriate so we just talked about it.

 

I messed up the positive one, but didn't want to waste more masking tape

 
In addition to the foldable, I made a number line out of a piece of masking tape in the hallway and had students walk out the absolute value.  A classmate would give them an integer between -15 and 15, and they would walk the distance to zero on the number line.  I think they thought it was a little ridiculous, especially those that 'got it' but I had very few students who messed up absolute value on the practice sheet they did for homework, so I'm calling it a success. 

Practice Sheet - Click Here for a Copy

 
I also made a set of index cards with random numbers from -50 to 50 on them.  I first had students find their opposite in the classroom (which I think I'm going to use as a way to make random groups from now on) and then I had the students line up in order from least to greatest without talking.  This was really good practice for them to move around and practice ordering integers. 
 
We've continued to practice integer number sense in their warm ups and as we are discussing integer operations, but they seem to have a good grasp on the concept, which makes me really happy. 

We've moved on to integer operations, and I am thrilled with how those lessons are going, but I'll talk about that in another blog post!

~Brittany~

Order of Operations Foldable

My students have been working with order of operations since they were in fifth grade, and it amazes me every year how they can recite the order of operations back to me, but when it comes to applying it - 'poof!' - it's like they've never heard of it before!  I've also found that often students recite the order as parenthesis, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction without any reference to the fact that multiplication and division/addition and subtraction are completed from left to right and that they aren't two different steps.  They also don't know what to do with roots when they encounter them, and problems where a sum is being divided by another sum. 

I still needed to review the order of operations with the students, but I wanted to make sure I would give them a resource they could refer back to throughout the year and into high level maths if necessary.  I'm a firm believer that just because I'm not teaching something this year doesn't mean I should avoid it if it will cause confusion later.  For example, when I taught fifth grade I didn't tell students you can't subtract five from three (3 - 5) because you can - I just told them that it would be a negative answer and they would learn about that in middle school.

PEMDAS Flipbook

I went a searching online and found this great idea for a foldable from the blog Math = Love.  I made my own version mainly because I wanted the words to be preprinted.  We cut them out and glued them into our math notebooks, and then took the notes about each step on the inside, behind the preprinted words.  On the side that was pasted down we completed a practice problem showing the order of operations. 

We wrote notes for each step on the inside

We solved a practice problem on the other side

The students then completed a practice sheet using the order of operations. My students did fairly well with it - a couple of missteps but nothing too bad.  However, the next day in our stations as we were working on our algebraic expressions posters (I talked about them here) some kept forgetting to use the order of operations.  I would ask them what does the order of operations say to do, and I had more than one student who looked at me with eyes opened wide and asked, 'this is order of operations?!?'  We definitely need to keep working on it.  :)  If you want a copy of this flipbook, click here.

 In other news, I took the plunge and opened a teachers pay teachers store, which you realize if you tried to download this flipbook..  I only have three products on there so far (two of which are free), but it was really awesome to wake up this morning and see that someone had given one my freebies 4 out of 4 stars!  Someone likes something I made!  I know, I'm a bit of a dork, but I am very excited about this new endeavour.  I don't expect to ever be making thousands of dollars like some of those AMAZING teachers, but I think I am going to enjoy getting the feedback from other teachers on things I've made - and since I'm a bit of a perfectionist it will encourage me to really think out a lot of the details of things I'm making so I can sell them on there later!  You can visit my teachers pay teachers store here.  (Even if you don't want to buy anything, you can go see what I'm talking about.)  The site overall is a wealth of fantastic resources, and if you aren't using it yet (and you're a teacher), I would encourage you to take a look.  A lot of the stuff on there is free too!

How do you get your students to remember to use the order of operations with everything?  What do you think about my teacher store?

~Brittany~

Powers and Exponents

I am LOVING my math notebooks this year!  I know it's only the third week, but we have used them almost every day so far and I have a great lesson planned for tomorrow using them to review powers and exponents. 

 

Most of my students have worked with exponents before, but I have a few sixth graders that didn't cover it in their fifth grade classes last year. Because of that, and because I have some lower level students as well, I wanted to give them some notes to refer back to later.  I wrote them out at first, and then realized how long it would take for my students to copy it all down.  Since I have quite a few things to get through, I didn't want to spend the entire class copying notes - so, I decided to type them up ahead of time.  I know this isn't a brand new idea, and I've done this before - but I used fun graphics and a different font, and....  well, I know I'm a bit of a dork.  Anyways, here is a picture of the notes I made - we will fill in the charts together at the bottom, and may highlight some of the vocabulary terms.  If you would like a copy of this, click here!

 

 

I also decided I wanted something more interactive, so I went searching on the internet, and found this amazing idea from To A Square Inch.  You take a stip of construction paper, and fold it like an accordian - make sure you fold it the number of your exponent, plus one.  This will create the correct number of faces for you to write the power, each factor in expanded form, and the answer.  Then, write it in.  I'm hoping this will help my students make the connection that powers are NOT the base times the exponent. On the back, we will write how you read each power.

 

Exponent Foldable - Front

 

Exponent Foldable - Back

 

Exponent Foldable

 

Another Example

 

I loved the idea, but I really wanted something that could be added to the notebook - and then I remembered something I saw on pintrest this summer where you make a pocket to glue into the notebook, and put your foldables inside of it.  This is my cute little pocket I made! I think I scared my neighbor teacher a little with how excited I was about this pocket - and possibly my hubby too.  I haven't been very creative or cutesy in the past with my self-made resources but I'm trying to change that this year!

 

Exponent Card Pocket - So excited about this!

 

I'm very excited about how my notebooks are coming along - and that I'm doing so well with my goal to use them.  I haven't used stations yet, but I've scheduled a day next week to attempt them!  I will let everyone know how that goes!

 

What do you think about my newest addition to our math notebooks?  What are some things you love to do in your notebooks?

 

~Brittany~ 

Problem Solving

We have officially entered September, and the second week of school.  The first week went very well, and I am SO excited about my students this year.  They all seem to be very sweet, and I am really looking forward to getting to know them better this year.  My schedule is also awesome - I am very happy with how that worked out for this year.  I am super excited about how my math notebooks are working out (although I still have a few kiddos without one - and at this point it's going to be tricky since most of the stores are sold out), but they are coming along well.  And, to top it off, I found out I am going to be department chair this year!  Yay!  One of my professional goals has been to take on more of a leadership role at school, and so I think this will be an excellent opportunity to do that.

I am starting out the year with a strong focus on the problem solving process.  Problem solving is one of our school's CSI (continuous school improvement) goals, and it was decided to use graphic organizers as our intervention.  Basically, it means we need to teach the students how to problem solve (which we do anyways), and introduce a graphic organizer as a strategy for problem solving.  So, that being said, I decided to make our first 'real' notebook entry the steps for problem solving.

I drew up and copied the feet (get it - steps?) for everyone, and had them cut them out and paste them in their notebooks.  We filled in the four steps that the math department decided on last year (understand, plan, solve and check), and then wrote an explanation of each step underneath.  The kids were amused by all of my references to writing on their feet, and turn to the page with their feet, and so on - I thought they were pretty cute, and much more engaging than traditional notes.  I borrowed the idea for the feet from... someone, but I can't remember who - and after looking through my pins and favorite blogs for about 30 minutes trying to give credit where it is due, I still can't find it.  So, let me know if it's your idea!

 

After we completed our steps, we put it into practice with our graphic organizer.  This is one of the graphic organizers that the faculty voted on last year, and that the math department modified to meet our needs.  The four corners have the four steps, and the center diamond is where students write the final answer.  We pasted the problem above the graphic organizer, and then I modeled how to use the graphic organizer.  We did another one together, and then two independently. 

 

One thing I love about the four step plan that we use is that you really do all of these steps every time you're problem solving - it's usually just internal.  Something I focus on in my classroom is being able to communicate about math and the process used to solve a problem.  This graphic organizer is a great tool to help them externalize their thinking.  It takes some practice - and I don't expect that the students have this much information on their graphic organizers to start with, but we continue to use them throughout the year and they do get better at it.  I tell them over and over that it is one thing to be able to get the right answer, and another to be able to explain how you got there.  My goal is that they are able to do both by the end of the year.

 

How does everyone else approach problem solving?  Anyone else have ideas on how to get students to communicate their thinking? 

Math Notebook Setup

One of the ideas that struck me at the end of last school year was to use interactive math notebooks this year.  I had kinda, sorta attempted them in the past, but didn't have a plan or a lot of follow through, so they ended up being warm up journals (and only for those kids who were organized to follow through without any prompting from me.)  In an effort to avoid that this year, I did a lot of research over the summer, and that is essentially how I found all of these awesome blogs I keep stealing ideas from.


All ready to go for setting up our notebooks!

Today (and tomorrow) were spent setting up our interactive notebooks.  One thing I regret, actually, is setting them up so soon.  I had multiple students in each class who didn't have the three subject spiral notebook that we will be using this year (even though it was on the supply list), and so I'm going to have to go back with them next week in seminar to make sure they have it all together.  In retrospect I should have waited until the second week of school to get them all set up, but live and learn.

Table of Contents

 

One thing I think every single math notebook I looked at had was a table of contents, so we made sure to put that in.  Here is what mine looked like after I filled it in with everything.  This is my teacher example - I do everything ahead of time in this one to test it out first, and I can refer to it when I'm trying to show students the finished product.  I complete one notebook with every class as well, but this is essentially my planning one.  The students don't have quite as much written in theirs yet.  We made four pages for table of contents, just to make sure we had enough to last the year.  For each entry they have to put the date, the topic, and the page number.

 

Math Notebook Guidelines

Next, we put in our notebook rules.  I found this on pintrest, and loved that it had a reason to go with every rule.  I bought a copy from teachers pay teachers, and shrank it so it would fit on half a sheet.  There is a pledge on the bottom saying they will try their best to follow the rules. (Her blog, Middle School Math Madness!, is also full of great ideas!)

 

Syllabus

I also found this from someone else, but can't remember who - I made my syllabus into a pamphlet, and then we glued it into our notebooks.  You just have to make sure you leave the back blank, since that is the part you glue down.  Now students can find all the class information and most of my major policies at any point during the year!

 

Standards

I also decided to have them glue in all the standards for Math 7, and we are going to go back and check them off as we learn them.  I think they were a little surprised at how many there were, and I hope they will be proud at the end of the year after we've crossed them all off.

 

 

Goals for the School Year

I had the students individually come up with three goals for this school year.  They could choose goals that had to do with being a better student overall (i.e. write down all of my homework), or goals that applied only to math class (i.e. learn all my math facts).  I'm looking forward to reading these!  Some of them were a little apprehensive, and others asked if they could use one of mine (stay organized).

 

 

Multiplication Chart (0-12)

The last thing we added during our initial set up was a multiplication chart (0-12).  While I feel like students should know their multiplication facts by now, not all of them do.  We will work on them throughout this year, but in the meantime a multiplication chart is a great tool for them to refer back to. I gave each student a sheet of graph paper, and they had to make their own chart.
 

We are also going to add a small manila folder (I finally found them at the store) to the back cover of their notebooks.  This will be a place for them to keep small pieces that they've cut out but haven't glued down yet so they aren't lost. I am also thinking about adding a envelope so they have somewhere to keep their math bucks, but I think I may leave that up to the individual student.

 

 

Something I need to remember to do is take my time getting them set up.  My first class went very well, but my second class was a bit of a mess, and it was my fault.  They had ten less minutes to set it up to start with because lunch ran over (one of the joys of the beginning of the year), and then we had a lock down drill.  I was trying to speed the process along, and that wasn't a good decision - students were confused, and things didn't get set up exactly like mine is. On top of that, I still didn't get through everything. You would think I would learn by now that somethings are just better left to the next day, but nope! At least now I'm learning that it's my fault when that happens, not my classes' fault.  I'm not too stressed about it though; we will just make sure everyone is on the same page when we start the next activity, and slow the pace down.

 

 

Does anyone else use interactive notebooks?  What do you do at the beginning of the year to set them up?

 

~Brittany~

2012 - 2013 Goals

So I was hoping that my second post would be a tour of my classroom, but unfortunately, even after four days of hard work - it's still not finished.  It is getting there though.  So, since that plan went up in smoke, I decided to share my goals for this school year.  This summer I spent a lot of time on pintrest and perusing teacher blogs for ideas - and I got a TON of great ideas!  So many in fact, I began to feel completely overwhelmed by how many things I wanted to try this year.  I eventually realized that unless I wanted to go completely insane and get so overwhelmed that I completely gave up on all of my new ideas, I should pick three and focus on those.  That being said, here they are:

1) Math Notebooks - I have tried to use these before, but never really followed through, mainly because I didn't have a plan of action.  I have spent a lot of time this summer researching math notebook ideas, looking at how other teachers use them, pinning ideas on pintrest, and reading blogs.  Lots of my ideas I've gotten from Runde's Room, including the posters on how to organize your math notebook (see the picture below). 

I decided at the end of last year I was going to use three subject notebooks for my math journals, so I'm lucky that they were added to the seventh grade supply list for this year.  We are going to start using them the very first day (just decorating the cover), and then really get them set up the second day.  I have a different colored notebook for each class so I can work with students as they complete theirs.  I also have a purple one - but I've misplaced it in my classroom somewhere.  I'm hoping it will turn up - that's going to be the one I complete ahead of time to make sure I know what I'm doing. 

My goal is to use the first section for notes and foldables, the second section for vocab - I'm going to try out Fryer's Model for vocab this year, and the third section for warm ups.  I'm going to try to do something, other than warm ups, with our math notebooks at least once a week.



2) Math Stations - This is something I used almost daily and with a LOT of success back in VA, but I struggled with implementing it in middle school with larger classes and without my familiar resources.  When I moved out here last year I didn't have a job lined up, and since the Air Force had already moved the hubby out we had three suitcases to move my entire life.  We forgo moving school supplies since I didn't know if I was going to get a position and if I did, I didn't know what I would be teaching.  Anyways, I tried stations once or twice but couldn't make it work the way I wanted. 

As I was researching math notebooks this summer, I came across some ideas on how to organize stations in the middle school, and so I'm going to try to implement them more this year.  I love math stations because they are so easy to differentiate, they can provide multiple methods for learning the same topic and because students love them.  They get to move around and it helps keep their attention since they aren't focused on the same thing for an entire class period.  Also, on these days, the homework is usually to finish their station work - and they don't want homework so they get it done. 

My goal is to use math stations at least once every other week.  I'm hoping that as the school year goes on we can use them more often, but this is a good start.



3) Math Bucks - Let me start by saying I stole this idea in its entirety from a teacher on Teachers Pay Teachers (which, by the way, if you haven't found yet - go visit - it's amazing) named Jim Bennett.  He describes them as his most popular math incentive and I'm so excited to try them out.  Essentially its an economy system, but based around your math class. 

Students earn math bucks by turning in homework, working hard, asking thoughtful questions or whatever you want.  Then, they can 'buy' things such as homework passes, right or wrong answer on a quiz (you tell them whether its right or wrong - not what the answer is), or so on.  I'm adding a few other things, like bathroom pass or late assignment pass.  I'm also going to try and tie it in with my classroom management plan - if you break a rule, then you get fined.  My husband asked me what I was going to do if they didn't have any math bucks - and I think I'm going to have them make up the time during lunch.

My goal is to implement this system and use it!  I've already printed and cut out $150, but I know I am going to need more.  I also made this poster to show how they work, and I'm including them on my syllabus - I'm hoping that will be good motivation to keep going.



What are some of your goals this year?



~Brittany~