Events in Instruction and Hands-on Ideas for Math

It has been a while...not because I do not love my blog or school stuff anymore.  Actually, it is quite the opposite.  This year I have had an opportunity to write middle school math curriculum for online learning.  It has been quite an adventure and an excellent way to really begin to understand the Common Core State Standards.  Praise God for LearnZillion and there many models of how they interpreted the new standards.  I highly recommend adding them as a go to place if you are ever confused.  My last full time writing assignment was completed on Sunday and I am eager to catch up on my reading and learning from everyone else.
My first place to hit was Pinterest. which got me excited to share #MyFavFriday.  I am gearing up for the analog Pinterest board  in the teacher workroom and I have found some great additions this week.

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First up, Mia MacMeekin's incredible infographics on Events in Instruction. From ideas for gaining attention to assessing, she provides almost a menu of sorts for over 25 concrete suggestions per topic.  I loved the variety especially for those days when I realize that I am stuck in a rut and need to change it up a bit.  For example, need to gain attention?  Try singing, dancing, watching a video clip, relocating your class to a spot other than your classroom, do a demonstration, ask questions, engage students' senses, make content current, give them a dare or challenge, act out a portion of the content, connect with others via Skype, or invite a guest speaker into your room.  These are definitely worth checking out!!!

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As one who prefers hands-on activities to worksheets, I loved this idea via Sarah Schriefer Dexter for using student desktops to annotate on polygons, coordinate planes, and parallel lines and transversals.  There is something about writing on desks that gets kids engaged.  By adding the colored painter's tape, you could extend this to create comparison charts or graphs (we are working on this for the science portion of the ACT).

Finally, I found Katie Powell's idea for a giant floor graph made from a plastic drop cloth and masking tape.  In her blog post, she describes using it with hot wheel cars in a Cityscape Challenge, but from graphing lines to graphing trig functions, it could be used to get high school students up and moving. 

Pinning for Real: Game Pieces, Art, and More

This week, Pinterest was full of ideas for the classroom.  For the past few months, we have been Pinning for Real on an analog Pinterest board in our teacher workroom.  The exciting thing is that I have actually walked in and seen teachers looking at the pics and scanning the QR codes that take them to related blog posts!!!  Disclaimer: While I teach high school math, I work on a 7-12 campus; the ideas hit a variety of grade levels and subjects:), but can definitely be used as a springboard for activities in any classroom. In college one of my professors would bring in a common household items and ask us how we could use it.  The lists were lengthy and the idea was to get us to think beyond the obvious (a toothbrush to prop open the heavy wooden window).  That is how I looked at this week's pins.  When I saw the random ideas, I asked, "So, how can I use this in math?"
Making this week's board and my thoughts for math:

ABC's of Crazy's Game pieces made from students’ pictures. (This would be fun to make for family fun night too.)  How could I use this in the math classroom?  How about as game pieces for @Nutterbutter Smith's Games for Students by Students or my own students' board games for review.

aly mw's Onomatopoeia Art  
I love the bright colors and the sense of fun that these pieces seem to evoke.  My sweet friend, Kathleen, who teaches American History is having students create a graffiti wall inspired by the writers and artists of the Harlem Renaissance which reminds me of these colorful masterpieces.  Art in Math?  I love having Geometry students create art using specific shapes, angles and line lengths (I have had students create "stain glass windows" that contain required elements).  I also like Coordinate Grid pics like Math Aid's Pink Panther.  Maybe this year, I could have students create their own pics using piecewise functions for their friends to solve. (Future #Made4Math???)

School of Fisher's How-to for Printing on Sticky Notes Ummm...printing on sticky notes?  Any subject!  Anytime!  Most obvious, exit tickets:)

Westover's Librarian, Katherine's idea for "What's your status?" Could be used for fictional characters, historical figures, and science elements.  For math?  Famous mathematicians would be the easiest, but I also thought about assigning the students a type of function like linear or quadratic and have them post from that point of view.  If I took this route, it seems like a student would truly have to understand about the domain, range and graph to complete this extension activity.  Perhaps, it could be more of a riddle in which students have a function and they could write descriptive "clues" until classmates guess their equation...????...just thinking out loud...but, I am always looking for meaningful ways to keep my fab 4 (early finishers) working from bell to bell.

Want to create your own analog board?  This week's finds ready to print:

Pinterest-ing Ways to Review

With the 1st test of the school year soon approaching, I am on the look out for new ways to review previously covered material.  Between new blogging friends sharing via #Made4Math, #MyFavFriday, and Pinterest, I have a wealth of ideas to choose from!  On our staff's analog Pinterest board, here is what we are pinning this week:

@Nutterbutter Smith's: Review Games for Students by Students

@Mathtastrophe's: Zap!

Uncommon Teacher to the Core's: Beach Ball Review

@PamJWilson's: Flip 4 Answers

Click for the analog pins' file ready for printing and pinning onto your staff's PD board.