Winter: 4 Nancy: 1

Believe it or not, I have had four snow days to the last five days of school. Two winter storms in a row have nailed my current city. I'll be honest, I'm ready to be back at school. I'm sure my middle school self would be yelling at me right now, but it gets boring fast when you can't go see your friends and you already cross a bunch of stuff off of your to-do list. For example the first snow day way back in the beginning of the month I was starting to feel overwhelmed so that day was certainly needed in order to get caught up and ready to go again. This past Friday's snow day (while we probably could have had a late start) I used the day to prepare the lessons for the last two weeks. Tuesday's snow day was focused on my electronic portfolio and resume. With all of those work days, yesterday became a play day and I took on the snow to drive to Central. The drive was fine in the afternoon but took on quite some vengeance as I traveled back here last night. Given the poor road conditions and too many rural students within the area, welcome to snow day number 4. Luckily there is a big event going on at Central that I am a part of where I can go help out early but still, its time to be back at school. A week from tomorrow is my last day and I really want to see my students =(

Nonetheless, when we have had classes, Math 7 is working on solving equations and Pre-Algebra is learning how to graph linear equations. And why yes! These are the hardest chapters of the semester...so the students are really struggling keeping information they have learned considering in school one day, out for two. Thankfully, the next lesson for Math 7 was going to be a review since we were quickly losing them in two step equations and it may be that I spend a good chunk of tomorrow reviewing in Pre-Algebra also. 

In Math 7, I created a new review game for them using math jokes and a hangman app. What would happen is that the students would guess a letter and if the letter was in the word then I filled in the blank. But! if they guessed a letter not in the word, not only would they start hanging the man, but they also would have to do a problem regarding solving equations. When I used this game for solving equations with fraction coefficients, I actually started hanging the man upside down to remind the students they had to use the reciprocal (flipped fraction) to solve these problems. Also, originally I had them doing a problem for every letter they guessed, but they said that wasn't fair, in which I agreed. Plus by adding you could have a problem or your couldn't, it added suspense and energy to the game. The two jokes I used were "What did the acorn say when it grew up" ..."Geometry" (Gee-I'm-a-tree!) and "What do vegan zombies eat?" ...."Graaains." While I know the jokes are dorky, they are still jokes and even pity laughter works for me. 


In Pre-Algebra, it really stinks that I will have to leave in the midst of this chapter because I think I have really cool lessons that will help the students understand graphing and especially slope better. I definitely post pictures of how I go about this once we finally get to it...the lessons have been planned for two weeks now and I'm getting anxious. As a preview, the activity for Monday now involves taking normal pictures, placing a coordinate plane over them with two dots, and then a line through them. They will have to find the points, find the slope, and say if it is a positive or negative slope. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Yes I do realize that Valentine's day was last week but I still want to blog about it because it was such a grand day. That day at school, and that week as a whole, is where I really felt like I was a part of the community there both faculty and student wise and I was no longer just the new girl. Within this day, I woke up to a Valentine's day breakfast (pink pancakes!) as well as a Valentine's day gift from the family that is so kindly hosting me as I student teach. Then at school! Some kids came around with cupcakes so I ate one of those; another student gave me a chocolate kiss; a different student gave me a gift filled with chocolate; and last but definitely not least, I had a student write me the most wonderful Valentine (it read I love you Mrs. Huggleston (I'll take it) and I mean it. Love, student. Love not only was in the air for those hormonal middle schoolers but also for their teachers that teach them every day. Here is are two pictures of my gifts from Valentine's day. 

Zap!

Zap is a game that I merge together from various other review games. I created this game after Jeopardy didn't have the competition, engagement, or review level I desired for the students. I found this Smart Board App on the Smart Board site exchange.smarttech.com but created the rules of the game myself.

The set-up/rules are as follow:

1. Each row is considered a team.
2. Each individual student gets a different number (I had numbered 1-30 because most classes have 29 students)
3. Each student has their own "game card" that is split up into four sections regarding problems that have been learned in class (i.e. Simplifying Expressions, Adding Expressions, Subtracting Expressions, and Factoring Expressions). Each student must play the game and put each problem under the correct label. 
4. I put one an expression up on the whiteboard that follows under one of the four topics and allow students 1 minutes time to work on the problem.
5. After one minute, I call out a number (I have my own deck of numbers that I randomly draw from).
6. The student with that number comes up and does the problem. If they get it correct, they get to earn points for their team by playing Zap! As seen in the picture below, there is a dark blue area that can have different point values. Each point value can be added to the light blue bank. Each team can say whether they want to keep clicking and obtaining points by tapping the dark blue side. The catch is, if the word ZAP! appears, that team loses all the money they gained in the bank.
   (If the student gets the problem answered incorrectly, I call out a new number, allowing a different team or possibly the same team to answer).
7. After that problem is answered correctly and the points are added (or not added), I put up a new problem on the board, call up a new number, and repeat.
8. In order to win, not only is it the team with the most points but each student in that row must have their "game card" filled out correctly. 

The best part about this game was that I never knew who was going to win. Zap! has a random number generator in it so you never knew what was coming. There were games were it was after every 4th hit, there was a Zap! and some games where it took 12 hits. Those teams that were ambitious could either get away with it or find themselves unlucky. 

Welcome to full-time

Oh my! It has been ages since I have been able to sit down and blog because starting February 5, I took over Pre-Algebra and entered full-time status. 

Regarding Pre-Algebra, I came in halfway through Chapter 7 which had to deal with equations and inequalities. Luckily the students have already had a thorough background in solving equations so when I taught solving inequalities, it was almost a walk in the park for them (but remember! when you multiply or divide by a negative number, flip the sign!). Because the students were familiar with the concept, I was able to spend more time on creating fun activities or word problems for them to solve--which most of the time ended up dealing with traveling. For example, one day we created a budget to go to Adventureland; another day we "traveled" through space to see how much we weighed on different planets (i.e. I weigh over 3000 pounds on the sun and under 20 pounds on the moon); and we also pretended to backpack across Europe. I really liked creating all of these examples because I felt it was a good way for me to teach math and for the students to get to know me--like how I have more or less backpacked around Europe and how my dad and I go to Adventureland every summer. I ended the chapter with playing a review game I did in the regular math classes called Zap! They also really enjoyed the competitiveness of the game while reviewing the concepts. As I looked over their tests, their scores fell in line with how they normally score. 

These next weeks, we start Chapter 8! All the kids have been groaning about this chapter because it is all about graphing and learning about linear equations. It will be a tough topic to learn and teach but I'm really excited for many of the lessons because this gives me a good opportunity to try different activities. I look forward to sharing them on here!

Considering regular 7th grade math, from the last post to this one, I played two different review games. I started out one day with Jeopardy and the second day was Zap! Originally, I had imagined that we would play Jeopardy both days but I found it was hard to keep kids engaged when it seemed in all three classes, one team would take the game away. While that is good for that row to succeed, I also wanted to create more competition and engagement--that is when Zap! was formed. The explanation of this game is seen in a later post. After these two review days, I was definitely anxious for the kids' testing because this was the first time I was ever actively involved in a classes learning. And those kids...they came out on top for themselves (and for me)! The average score was a B and in one class the mode class was an A+! Miss Mobius said we couldn't have asked for better results. I am so proud of my kids. 

After the test, I also had the students write a review of how I was doing. Overall the students really liked the games I was playing and how I was able to get math down to their levels. One thing I needed to work on was my speed of teaching. They said sometimes I would talk too fast or get off topic for a split second and then they would be lost. Excitement sometimes gets the best of me. But with both of those comments in mind, I'll keep the games coming and try to slow down my presentation as to continually help each student succeed. 

Now in that class we have moved onto solving equations. I have brought back Whack-a-Mole which many students enjoy and I am trying to find new games to play. I've already created on for tomorrow's class so I hope it goes well! While these first couple of lessons have been fairly simple for most students, this next part of the chapter is going to prove itself more difficult. Oh! One of our days too was a word problem galore day, so in one of the story problems from the book I changed it to deal with Dory and then I found this picture online so it became the motto for the day as I sang it after each problem. Surprisingly enough, 1st hour enjoyed it the most. 

Dear Students

Yesterday I was talking with another teacher in her classroom and I saw this posted on the front of her desk and I absolutely loved it. So when she left, I swiped a picture of it as a reminder of something that I will want in my classroom. After I saw this, I proceeded to look closer at her classroom and I found all sorts of motivational posters and sayings. Definitely a warm classroom created and I've heard she is one heck of an English teacher. 

Whack-a-Mole and Snow!

This past week has been something else. It is crazy to think I've only been there for 3 weeks because I feel like I have developed so much in the past 2 weeks in learning how to develop and teach a lesson and how to direct and relate to the students. Because I am starting to get the hang of things, I tried to do different types of review and practice for them where it would still keep the same structure while still hopefully adding a bit of excitement. For example, E. Middle School runs a Gradual Release model for their lessons which looks like I do it (Teacher), We do it, You (all) do it, and then You (independently) do it. It is a method of which I have heard of but most of the time at Central we practiced the We, we, we mode so to change my language has taken some getting used to and I still slip up at times but that is how the notes go. In generally I do an example and then they try an example in their notes. After that I may do their example on the board according to their directions or I will send someone up to the board who has the right answer or close to the right answer because then other students can catch mistakes. As of right now, the best way to help the students learn the topics (different operations on expressions) a lot of practice is best. This is where I get to be creative and try new things. 

For example, 

On Monday I created an activity for them to do in partners where they had to use the distributive property and adding linear expressions to find the perimeter of their desk. I started it off by having them make a prediction on the desk's perimeter so that whoever was closest at the end would win a piece of candy. I know bribing isn't always good, but sometimes it is nice to add in that element. I think the students enjoyed the activity but unfortunately the activity was rushed and so not everyone got as far as I would have hoped. 



On Tuesday and Thursday, I taught the students subtracting linear expressions. I started off on Tuesday with an example about the Super Bowl and ended up making a big fool of myself one of the hours because they found out quickly I don't follow football all that well. But oh, well! After I taught them the lesson, I pulled up a game I found for SmartBoards called Whack-A-Mole. And it was similar to the games you play at ChuckieCheeses but this time once you "whacked" (aka "lightly hit") a mole, a different problem popped up for them to try. I let the students pick the problems if they answered one up there and I liked that it added an element of surprise and choice for the students. 

Oh yeah! Wednesday. Here is what Wednesday morning looked like =)

I would just like to say, I actually did get a lot done that way in the regards to lesson planning to hopefully alleviate stress and planning for the next days to come.

Friday I reviewed with them the of how to find the greatest common factor of two different numbers. Luckily they had already learned this previous in the year but this time we added in different variables because it leads into Monday's lesson on Factoring linear expressions. Once again to add an element of surprise and choice for the students I put different numbers in a cup and had students draw them out so that the class had to find the GCF of those two numbers. I am really glad I didn't really use technology today because it was nice and fun to walk around with the students and to show we could have fun without it.

Now for next week! On Tuesday I start FULLTIME. PreAlgebra will be halfway through their chapter so it sounds like a good place for me to jump in so that I can learn the rhythm and flow of their classroom before trying some new things in Chapter 8. Luckily, Math 7 will be predominantly reviewing for the test and then taking a test so I have time right now to focus on PreAlgebra. Wish me luck!