A Group Test after the Test...Here's How It Went

I tried something that I learned by reading a conversation on Twitter this summer.  I would only be guessing at who was having this conversation, so if you read this and it sounds familiar, let me know so I can give you credit.  Anyway, the conversation was about tests and retesting.

What I found interesting was the idea of retaking the test as a group the day after they take the test individually.  The group has limited time, say 15-20 minutes, to complete the test.  I tried this with our first skill quiz in Algebra this year.

My reasons for trying it were to:
1) help students see that they are not the only ones with a question,
2) allow peers to work together and think through the quiz, 
3) to give me and opportunity to listen to how students were explaining the math to each other, and
4) to make sure that everyone had a copy of the quiz in their math binders with the problems worked out (some students will never bring back the signed test to put in their binder).

I have two completely different groups.  My first group is a higher ability group that doesn't enjoy being quiet and still for more than 10 seconds.  This has been a challenging group so far.  My other group is quieter, but as a group, they struggle a little more to understand the material.  They present a different type of challenge.

I say this because there were two different outcomes for this activity.  In my first group, I walked away feeling "meh" about the process.  It took a lot of work to get them started and on task, even with regrouping them so that students that did well were placed with students who didn't.  They were also more argumentative with each other in a nonproductive way.  I struggled to convince them of the value of their work.  We will try this again on another quiz/test, but I am thinking to take it another way.  I am thinking of making it an error analysis activity and using mistakes that students actually made on the test.

My second group had a totally different experience.  They got right to work, helped each other, and talked about the questions.  I heard thinks like "I thought you had to..." and "But why wouldn't you..." while they were working with each other.  This was completely beneficial for them.  I also was able to answer questions that stumped the entire group, which made for a great dialog between the students and I.  I felt like this group walked away with understanding of what they did wrong and what still needed more practice.  It was a good use of time and we will try it again in the same way.

In sharing this technique, others thought that I should do this before the quiz/test.  I don't think that it is a bad idea by any means, however I have two concerns.  My first concern is that the only way that they will review for the test, will be the group test.  I want them to know how to study for math without me giving them questions.  The second concern that I have is that the questions are standards based and more open ended.  I am a novice at writing questions this way and am just not confident I can write three or four questions that I really like, so I can do a practice test, test, and re-test.  I'm not ruling it out, but I'm just not ready to go there, yet.

Tellagami for Vocabulary...I'm Still Unsure

This picture caught my eye on Pinterest a while back and I am finally getting around to checking it out.  This comes from Matt Coaty who writes the blog Educational Aspirations.  Matt teachers gifted and talented students at the elementary level.

When I first saw it, I thought what a cool idea for getting students to show multiple representations of the same vocabulary word.  After closer inspection, I realized that the students were actually showing how to solve the problem.  I thought this is brilliant and totally motivating for middle school kiddos.

Since I had never heard of Tellagami,  I downloaded the free version from the app store on iTunes to my phone.  I played with it a little bit and it is pretty simple and students would figure it out quickly.  It's nice from the standpoint that there are a limited number of choices that the students can pick, so they can't spend hours picking the outfits and hairstyles and then never get to the math.  There is the option to type in the text and let a computer voice say it or you can record your own voice.

I have finally made my first gami about slope.  To start, I made up some cards about slope.  I opened the app and selected the background, then took a picture of my cards with the little person on the screen.  Then I recorded a little something about slope. It was really that simple.

To hear it play, click here

But, there are some downsides to this app that I found as I played:
1) There are in-app purchases (boo!).

2) There is a limited trial time to access everything.  After that you are left with one type of clothing which you can change the color of the shirt/pant.  That doesn't bother me.  Losing the ability to type what the character should say and then pick a voice is a bummer for me.  I don't want to pay for it.

3) There is the cost for the educational version of the app.  The cost is $4.99/subscription.  The up-side is that there are no in-app purchases.  It's just a bit too much to ask my school to pay at this time.

4) Because of the in-app purchases, I can't have students use their phones to produce a Tellagami.

5) Students are limited in the free version to 30 seconds.  I believe it is reasonable for a vocabulary word, but might not work to explain a problem.

6) There just isn't an easy way to collect them and put them into a file for later that I can figure out.  The email depended on the email entered into the device.  We can't use Facebook or Twitter for good reason from our school devices.  The only other option to share is via text.  That is how I was able to link my screen shot to the gami that was made.  So, timing is vital if students create these.  We need to share them during the same class period.  Or, one day is for planning and another day is for recording/sharing.  

I know that my students would love it.  But I am not sure after playing with it.  So I started thinking of alternatives.  Since my students enjoy making videos, we could do it without the Tellagami app and just record a video and save it to Google drive.  We would loose the computer animated person though and I know that would be novel and intriging.  They could make their own figure and insert it into the video.  Ultimately, the idea that Matt wrote about on his blog can be adapted.

I am putting this out there, hoping, that maybe there is someone wiser than I, who can tell me other options to work around the downsides of the app.  Does anyone use Tellagami (or something similar) in their classroom?  What do you do with it?  Love to hear about it! 

Ratio Fill Up (Ratio/Fraction Equivalences)

Here is another game from TMC14.  This is the game that my group worked on so I can take some credit in it's creation.  My group's goal was to create a game about ratios/proportions.  We were thinking of ratio tables and wanting students to see that each ratio was equal to the other.  There are quite a few rules to this game as you can see.  I took the rules straight off of the TMC14 wiki.

Objective: To earn three points [counters] by filling ratio tables with congruent ratios.

Materials: Gameboard with 4 ratios tables with room for 5 ratios in each table,  ratio cards, point counters, calculator.

Set-up: Shuffle ratio cards and deal 5 to each player.

Game play:
1) The first player plays any ratio card from their hand in the blank first space in a ratio table and then draws a card to end his/her turn.
2) The second player can either play an equivalent ratio in the same table as the first player or play a different ratio in one of the empty tables.
3) Play continues with each player playing equivalent ratios to fill up the ratio tables and drawing cards to replace the ratios just played.
4) When a ratio table gets full, whoever played the last ratio into that table gets 1 point, as long as they can identify operations to get from the first ratio played to the last (ie, if the first ratio is 2/8 and the last is 4/16, they could say multiply by 2/2 or divide by 2/2 and multiply by 4/4).
5) The player to the right of the player that played the last ratio will take the calculator and divide out the ratios in order to check to make sure the ratios are all equivalent.
6) Cards from the completed ratio table are put into the discard pile, and the cleared ratio table is open for any player to play in.
7) The first player to 3 points (counters) is the winner.

Other rules:
1) If the draw pile ever runs out, reshuffle the discard pile to create a new draw pile.
2) If a card is played incorrectly the player that noticed the error draws an extra card and the incorrect card is put into the discard pile.
3) Skips, reverses and wilds:

• Skips automatically skip the next player, 
• Reverses switch which order the players play (so, if play is going left at first, it instead goes right), and 
• wilds can be played in any ratio table that already has a ratio in it, but the player who plays it must name an equivalent ratio that isn't already in the table.  

4) If none of the cards from a player's hand can be played on their turn, that player discards one card and draws one card and their turn ends.

OK, this is a lot of rules!  Our group did agree that the game still needed some tweaking, but we just ran out of time.  Also, I am not so sure about the 4th rule.  I'm having trouble seeing the value in doing that.  Maybe when I play it with students I will, but right now I am struggling.  I would rather have my students identify the pattern in the ratio table and figure out how to do that considering that the ratios are not placed in any specific order during play.  What strategy would they use to figure out that there is a scale factor of 2/2?  What discussions or debates would come out of this?  Sometimes the first and last ratios played don't display an easily identifiable pattern and for the lower students, this could cause frustration.  I'll just have to play it and see.

Another thing that I did to modify this was to add labels to the ratio table.  I just felt like if students saw the labels they would not be thinking fractions.  The Power Point below is completely editable, so if you would like to remove those or change them, it is possible. 

Below you will find the gameboard and cards that I made up to use with my students.  The cards are ment to be cut out like fractions.  A more challenging option would be to cut the individual numbers apart and have the students work together to make ratio tables that are true and to explain how they know they are correct.  There is definitely room for tweaking and developing spin-offs of the basic game.

If you play this with students and make modifications, I would love to hear what you did and how it worked for you!

What's My Function?

The bottom x value is a 3.  It isn't very clear.

A few years I switched schools and in that move, lots of stuff ended up in my office area at home while it waited to go to it's new home in my new classroom.  Well, some of it never made it and after looking at it for the past 3 summers, I finally decided that it was time to dig through what was in the boxes and start organizing or throwing.

Here is a little gem that I came across in the files.  Writing the function rule from a table was a challenge for this particular class, so I had them make these cards.  Everyday, a new student posted their function table and the class worked to figure out the rule.  We then posted it for students to use for review on their own.  It was great practice, but it took a lot of time!  I think that is why is is still sitting in the file because it would impossible that I just forgot about   it! : )

I started thinking about this because I liked the premise of what I did.  So I came up with two alternatives to use instead.

1) Students would find a new partner each day and practice finding the function rule of their partner's card.  It would allow the opportunity for the students to practice coaching.  Also, it gives them an opportunity to explain their thinking and get clarification from a peer if needed.

2) Students could put the same information onto an index card.  They could do a mix 'n' match with them.  I could collect the cards and redistribute everyday and do a quick 5 minute review.  The index cards could also go into a station activity at a later time.

There are probably more ways to use this that my summer brain isn't coming up with yet.  Does anyone else have an idea of how to use this in the classroom?

Kahoot! is a Hoot!

So, at the end of last year, I was reading through the posts on Edmodo that other math and social studies teachers had posted.  One that caught my eye was about Kahoot!  Several teachers commented and talked about the fact that their students loved it.  I was intrigued and looked into the site.  First off, I found out that it was free which fits perfectly into my teacher budget.  Next, I found that it was super easy to use and didn't take a lot of time or work to make a review/quiz which fit into the hectic end of year schedule that I had.  Finally, I discovered that my students loved it!  It surprised me, to be quite honest.  The first group I tried it with was my least math loving students.  They were totally into it and wanted to play more.  I decided that if it could motivate my students that didn't love math, maybe it was worth using more often.

Kahoot! can be played on a computer, a laptop, an iPad, or a cell phone.  As long as you have access to an internet connection and web browser, you can play from anything.  Here is a quick walk through of Kahoot!  I took a lot of screen shots so you get a feel for the game part of the site.  I was also in the preview mode, not the full game of the literal equations review/quiz that I had made.  The cell phone is only on the side when you play a preview of a review/quiz.

First of all, Kahoot! is full of reviews/quizzes that other teachers have made and shared.  If you didn't want to make your own, chances are you will find something that you can use.  This is a screen shot of a search that I did for equations through the public reviews/quizzes that are available from other teachers.  I found a lot of reviews/quizzes that are available and I do not even have to take the time to make them! : )

When a review/quiz starts, the students are shown the game pin.  For this game, it was 50964.  Students go to kahoot.it and they will be asked to enter the pin.  Also, the pins change each time you play, so you can't just write the pin on the board and use it for every class.  Yep, I tried that and it didn't work.

 

Students are then prompted to enter a username.  I know when I do this next year, I will assign the group names to the students.  This was the most time consuming part.  As students enter their username, it appears on the screen.  When all of the students are entered, push the start now button and the review/quiz will begin.

 

The question comes up without choices to give students time to read it before the choices appear.

Then the question with the choices comes up.  On the students screen they just see the 4 boxes (red, blue, gold, and green) with the shape in each colored box.  You can set the amount of time students have to answer the question.

Kahoot! shows how the class did.  If, I remember right, the students also see if they are correct after everyone has answered on their device screen.

This screen shot just shows what it would look like if the answer was wrong.  Since I was the only one playing this game, it looks a little funny.  I liked these screens at the end of the review/quiz because if I was using it for error analysis, I could see how many students/teams in the room were making a particular mistake.  It was a quick "dipstick test" to see where understanding was.

Another feature that I like is that 2 answers can be correct.  Actually, all 4 could be correct if you wanted it to be.  In this screenshot, I had E/R=I and I=E/R as correct answers.

After the correct answer is revealed, the scoreboard is revealed.  Students really loved this!  There was a lot of motivation to do the next problem if you came in 2nd, 3rd, etc. place on the last question.  I was surprised that even my struggling students were working to solve the problems and didn't give up.  Competition was motivating!

At the end of the game, the final scoreboard is shown and students can see how they did.  I just gave the first place team eternal bragging rights, but next year, I think I will have a prize of some sort.

After the final scoreboard, there is a feedback form that students can fill in about their experience with the review/quiz.

The final screen declares the winner.  I like that it says how many right and wrong the team/individual had.  I think it helps to see that no one is perfect all the time.  Speed usually causes even the best students to mess up.

I usually don't talk about a website to this extent, but this is actually one that I am excited about and think it will be useful next year to switch things up and do something different.  

Definition Doctor

The first lessons of the text book are so heavily packed with vocabulary that I found myself going back to my bookshelf and looking for ways to practice, and not just memorize, the new vocabulary.  I found a strategy called "Definition Doctor" in a book entitled Style and Strategies for Teaching Middle School Mathematics by Edward J. Thomas and John R. Brunsting.

"Definition Doctor" piggybacks off of a technique called Vocabulary Knowledge Rating, or VKR.  In VKR, students rate their knowledge of the vocabulary on a scale of 1-4.  My sample is at the right and yes, there are a lot of vocabulary words in lesson one!  There are 28 vocabulary words in lessons 1 through 10.  I need to whittle the list down to an essential 13 or 14.  

For the "Definition Doctor" technique, students use the words that they rated in their VKR.  One student volunteers to be the "Definition Doctor" and another student chooses a vocabulary word from the list and asks the "Definition Doctor" to define and explain why the word is important to the lesson or unit of study.  If the "Definition Doctor" is stuck, they may ask another classmate for a "second opinion" to get some help.  After the definition and significance has been given, the student who chose the vocabulary word becomes the "Definition Doctor".  Practice continues like his until all the words have been reviewed.

When I read this techniques, I loved that it asked students to make connections and put a value on the vocabulary.  The word really is important to understanding the material!  I also liked that the activity has flexibility to be a large group, small group, or pairs activity. 

I wanted to make "Definition Doctor" feel more like a game, so my students would review all of the words.  I can totally see them reviewing 2 or 3 words and then chatting for awhile until I came to see what they were doing or listen to their group.  By putting the vocabulary onto cards, the technique had more of a game feel.  If it was a game, then there is a start and a finish.  The cards would need to be gone through before they could stop.  It's not perfect, but better than just choosing off of a list.  The cards also let me focus the practice to specific words because I can take out words I don't want my students to focus on.

The template that I used to make the cards is here.  As always, if it will be useful to you, you are welcome to it!

Frog Flippin' (Measures of Central Tendency)

Aren't they cute?!  I found these the other day at my local dollar store.  I plan to put them to good use this year when we come to the topic of measures of central tendency.

Last year, I did an activity I called "Frog Flippin'".  I have about 10 of the medium size version of these frogs.  I asked the students to flip and measure the frog 10 times, record the data, calculate the mean, median, and mode of their frogs distances.  I then asked them to add 30 cm to their longest jump to create an outlier.  I found, at least in my experiments, the frogs were pretty consistent jumpers and didn't naturally create an outlier, so I made one exist. The students then examined what happened to the data with the outlier in it and we discussed what happened when it was taken out.

Next year, I want to add more data for analysis, even if it will take some more time.  I am still giving  this expansion some thought and tweaking but it is pretty well organized.  To expand the project, I am going to add in additional sizes to the activity.  By posing the question: "Which size frog goes the farthest?", I am hoping to intrigue the students enough that they want to know the answer themselves.

The main idea is that students will collect data for 10 flips for each frog in small groups picked by me.  Students will then need to calculate the mean, median, and mode of the data.  I want to open a discussion about how to pick the best measure of central tendency so that each size frog is represented most positively.  Which measure of central tendency should be used?  Will their chose vary by the size of the frog?

After this, I will ask if anyone is wondering anything about their data or the measures of central tendency.  I am hoping someone will wonder if more data would change the results.  I am also hoping that if there is an outlier, someone will question that as well.  Students will then gather data from their peers and recalculate the measures of central tendency.  Students are asked to make observations about what they are noticing.  Then, we'll examine outliers and the role they play in skewing data.

The original activity and the activity that I have been developing are attached if you are interested!


Original Activity:


3 Sizes Activity:

123 Switch! (Game to Practice Adding/Subtraction Integers)

 I found another great game to practice adding and subtracting integers.  The game really forces students to be flexible in how they think of number combinations.  I know that is an area that my kiddos struggle at times and they need to be much more flexible than they are.  So, when I found 123 Switch! on Tom DeRosa's blog, I Want to Teach Forever, I was thrilled!

Tom has a hand made template that students drew in their notebooks.  I see the value in that and would prefer that, but I know my kiddos and they need a game board.  So I made a template for addition and subtraction.  I am going to print them out on some fun colored paper and then glue them back to back.  With some quick lamination, they should be ready for the next school year! 

The first thing you do is pass out 7 cards to each player.  The black cards are positive and the red are negative.  The first player puts down a true equation based on the cards in their hand.  If they can't, they need to select cards from the draw pile until they can.

The next player can change 1, 2 or 3 cards by placing a card on top of one already on the board with one from their hand.  In the picture below, I could replace the 6 of diamonds with the six of hearts.  I could replace the 9 of spades with a 7 of clubs.  Then replace the 6 of diamonds with a 4 of diamonds and still have a true statement without changing the 3.  I could also just replace all three cards.  The goal is to be the first person to get rid of all of his/her cards.

The game becomes more challenging when you have to make subtraction equations.  I like that the game is challenging and competitive enough to keep the students interest.  Not to mention, it's  a great way to practice!

Here are my templates for the game boards.  I also made a direction sheet for the students.

Product Race! (Product Rule of Expoents Game)

I wanted to practice the Product Rule of Exponents Property.  My algebra kiddos worked on this last year in pre-algebra, but I am pretty sure that they will be a bit rusty.  The game that I developed is super simple, but it reviews the property.

The game board is a basic square design and the first person to return to the start square is the winner.  The students roll a die and move the number of spaces indicated on the die.  Then, they pick a card and using the expression on the game board, multiply the two expressions together.  If the student is correct and his/her peers agree, then the student may take one extra turn.  If incorrect, another student takes their turn.

I recycled some old file folders by putting the game board into them.  It fit really well.  I then put the directions for playing the game on the front cover and snipped the corner that had the label.  The final task will be to laminate the entire folder for durability.  I am going to keep the cards separate from the boards in their own snack sized bags.  I thought about duct taping them to the back of the folder, but I thought they would stack better without the bag of cards on the back of it.

I have kept the rules pretty basic because I find that the students have great ideas for rules of games and ways to make it harder (and easier) to win.  I also had a thought to make this a team game.  Two students will work together to multiply the expressions, write down their final answer, and show it to the other team.  The other team would also work the problem and show it to the other team.  If it matched, both teams could move an extra space.  If it wasn't a match, then the team that was correct, would get to move an extra space and the incorrect team has to move back one space.  A little more competition might be helpful to keeping interest.

The game board, directions, and cards are below if anyone would like them.  I don't like that the word formatting changed all of the letters to capitals, but until I can figure out how to fix it, it will have to do.

** Update: Much thanks to Kayla who told be how to fix the letters.  It was so simple!  I should have figured it out.  Nonetheless, I appreciate the assistance!

Zero!

As my fellow Saxon Algebra I (2009) know, Lesson 5 combines absolute value and addition of integers into one lesson.  In the past, I have taught the two ideas separate from each other and practiced the skills separately.  This year, I wanted to practice the skills together and I started hunting around the internet for a possible activity that I didn't have to create.  Well, I found it!  It is a game called ZERO! and I found it on the blog, "I Speak Math" written by Julie Reulbach.

The game is basically blackjack with the goal being to get 0, not 21.  The red cards are negative and the black cards are positive.  The student with the number closest to 0 when the cards are added is the winner of the round.  Students calculate the absolute value of each of their round totals, then at the end of the game, they add up the absolute value column.  The student with the number closest to zero, is the winner of the game.  This sounds like a blast!  I think my kiddos will love it and it reinforces addition of integers and absolute value all in one game!!

There is a link above to Julie's explanation of the game at "I Speak Math".  Her direction and score sheets are there as well.  I don't subscribe to Scribd, so I recreated the direction sheet and score sheet myself.  It is basically what Julie has, but I added learning goals, supplies, an example on the score sheet, and a reminder to turn it in for credit.  It is below if you'd like it.

Practicing Expressions and Their Vocabulary

Opps!  Should have had the "s" in coefficients in parentheses. 

The next lesson in the text is about the different parts of an expression and is very vocabulary heavy.  My challenge has been how to practice the vocabulary and do something more than just memorize the definitions. 

With some thought, I came up with two different ideas.  One of them is in the picture at the left.  I had these numbers left over from when I was "The Mathematical Wonder" superhero for the day last school year.  They got me thinking that I could have the kids make expressions and define the different parts of the expression to a partner.  It wasn't a bad idea, but I didn't feel like I was stretching them.  Then, brilliance struck and I thought, "what if their expression had to meet specific criteria?".  That would challenge them to create an expression and understand the vocabulary words! 

I created some simple task cards which you can download below.  If the dollar store is out of the numbers, I am going to use the plastic bottle tops that I've collected and my trusty sharpie to make my own set of numbers. 



I wanted something else to practice with that was active.  So I thought about the Kagan cooperative group technique called "Mix-'n'-Match".  I have had good success with this in the past.  If you're not familiar, students each have a card and have to go and tell someone the answer to what is on the card (or explain something to another student).  So student A explains to student B, then Student B explains to student A what was on their card.  The two students then swap cards and go talk to someone new.  This goes on for 5 minutes or so.  I like it because there is a lot of practice happening in a short time frame and it gets them up and moving.

After I made the cards, I thought that they would work well for an inside-outside circle activity.  For this activity, students make two circles with one circle inside of the other.  Students face each other so that one student on the outside circle is facing a student from the inside circle.  They talk about the cards, swap them, and then either the inside or outside circle moves while the other stands still.  There are lots of variations on this activity, so do what works for you.  Below are the cards that I made.

Stations for Real Numbers

Well, school has barely ended and I am already working on next year. There will be no rest for me this summer as I get ready to have a blended, leaning heavily towards flipped, Algebra classroom next year. Making the videos is not what I think will be the most time consuming! What is taking longer is figuring out how to use all of class time that I now have!  In some cases, it is narrowing down the activities that I have and figuring out what will be the best use of the class time.  In other cases it is finding the activity or tweaking something to better fit the topic.

The first lesson that we do in the Saxon Algebra I (2009) text is about classifying real numbers. I like the calk walk activity that I did last year, but I want to use that to review with the following week.  I want to spend the class time after the first video actually practicing classifying the numbers. For some reason, this needs more practice than I usually give it.  So I decided to set up some stations and practice and practice and practice classifying numbers in the real number system.

Here are the stations (I'm still working on the names)...

Station 1: Popsicle Stick Sort 

In this station students will be asked to sort 20 popsicle sticks with different numbers on them.  The white cups are the classifications of natural, whole, integer, rational, and irrational.  The green cups have multiple groups.  I made the categories of irrational/real, rational/real, rational/integer/real, rational/integer/whole/natural/real, and integer/whole/natural/real.  The first task at this station will be to sort the popsicle sticks into any cup that would classify the numbers.  They will then write down 3 observations about how the numbers were sorted.  The second task will be to use only the white cups and decide which is the best classification for each number on the popsicle stick.  They will then write down 3 observations about this task.

Station 2: Real Numbers Concentration

For this station, students play a traditional game of concentration (or memory), but they get a match if the two numbers flipped are from the same set of numbers and they can identify the set.  Students can't use the same set, two times in a row.  So for example, if student 1 made a match using rational numbers as the classification, then he/she couldn't make a match on their next term using rational numbers.  He/she would need to use another set.  I am also not letting them use real numbers for any of the classifications.  Also, all of the cards have a match, but depending on what set students use the last ones may be challenging to classify.

Station 3: Real Life, Real Numbers

In this station, students will be asked to sort the real life situations into the best set of real numbers.  Students will need to explain why they have picked that particular category for the situation.  The trickiest are the circular questions.  Students tend to classify those as rational when it should be irrational.  All of my examples came directly from my textbook.

Station 4: Tic-Tac-Toe: Real Number Style!

This is a basic game of tic-tac-toe with a twist: To win you need to have 3 of the same sets!  Students can pick their own numbers and classify them into any set that the number belongs.  Another student can block them by putting another number in a box and classifying it in a different set.  Some strategy will need to be used and really thinking about the sets that a number can belong.  Students may classify numbers as real in this game.  I'm going to monitor it closely and see if that is all that they are using.  I can always change the rules! :)

Station 5: Real Number Carousel

The last station that I am going to have the kiddos do is a real number carousel that is free on Teachers Pay Teachers.  I am going to have this set up for them to work on while they are waiting for a station or when they finish all of the stations.  Hopefully that will help with down time.

Sorry about the long post.  If you made it all the way to the end, then I hope that you found something useful that will make next year better!  I would love to hear how any of the activities goes for you.  I will update after I try them in the fall!

Literal Equations

Last week the kiddos were having a lot of trouble with literal equations and I decided to make some task cards for them.  This is my first attempt at making my own task card and my own boarders. I think they turned out nicely for a first attempt.  I put QR codes on them because I was trying to save my sanity.  Just putting some questions on the board without a check was not a good idea! :)

Since I made the task card, I thought I would post them for anyone who wants them.  I got the equations from 2 different worksheets that I downloaded from the internet a while back.  I can't find the exact ones again.  My apologies to the original authors!

Here it is in Power Point, but it is converted from the Keynote version, so you might need to clean it up a little.  Sorry!  (The Keynote version is below.)



Here is the Keynote set of task cards:



Hope they help someone out!  Enjoy!

Integer Idol

Integer Idol is not something that I can take credit for creating.  It was something that I found going through you tube videos for songs about the integer rules.  Integer Idol caught my eye because middle schoolers are very into their music and I wanted to tap into that.  The original video just has the students create a song (or parody) for multiplication and division rules, but I raised the stakes by asking them to include all 4 integer rules in their song (adding and subtracting are the bigger challenge to work into a song).  I did this in January because Saxon breaks the integer rules up over multiple lessons and the final integer lesson wasn't until January.  So, needless to say, this served as a review and memorization strategy.

To do the project, I had them form small groups of 2-4 people.  I also gave the option of doing the project individually.  I gave a little over a week to develop the song and practice.  I gave them 2 class periods to get going with the song.  We went to the computer lab and the students pulled up you tube videos of the songs they wanted to make parodies and got to work writing their lyrics.  We used Google docs to share verses and ideas back and forth.

Then, on the due date, we set the stage and preformed our songs.  We did a vote for the best song, but they only won bragging rights.  The competition did help them work harder at getting the best song, group look, etc.  All of the details are below and a grading rubric is there as well.  Are your students the next Integer Idol?



* Just one note- I work at a small school, so when I say that it might be in front of the entire 7th grade that was about 50 students.

Slope from a Graph Match Up

Here is an activity that I made a while back for finding slope from a graph.  I took a Kuta Software worksheet and turned it into a matching activity.  Students were asked to match the graph to the slope.  There are multiple slopes that are the same, but the line is different which got my more inquisitive students wondering why.  Overall, it is a pretty simple activity, but it did give me a chance to answer clarifying questions and make sure that they could determine slope correctly.  The biggest reminder that I had to give was to make sure that the x-axis was horizontal.  The kiddos weren't always careful about that.  The activity took between 7-10 minutes.

I just printed the pages onto different colored pieces of paper to keep the sets together.  Card stock and lamination would always be better, but the colored paper did the job for the time being.  I cut the pieces apart and tossed the sets into a zipper lock snack bag. 

If it will be useful to you, feel free to use it. 

When the Schedule Gets Crazy...

This year, I was introduced to a website called Collaborative Mathematics through the math teacher's circle that I participate in once a month.  It is a site that puts out a video explaining a really interesting math problems and asks people to solve them and send in videos of how they solved the problem.  The challenges are put out once a month by the author Jason Ermer.  Jason is a Math and Computer Science teacher in Oslo, Norway.

I really liked the problems and started playing the videos and doing the challenges in class with my students right before a break or when the schedule was crazy.  The kids got into them and the discussion was great!  I also like it because there isn't a quick answer and it really forces the students to listen to each other and challenge each others' thinking.

The one thing that I have learned after doing a few of the challenges is that my struggling kiddos need some help focusing their thinking or else they will give up.  For the last challenge that we tried before spring break, I made the worksheet below and it really seemed to help my struggling students get into the problem and feel on par with those who were getting it faster.  I'm including it if you would like to try Challenge #3 with your students and use the worksheet.  This challenge is really good for writing rules for arithmetic sequences and pushing it farther into what happens when there is an alternating sequence and how do you write it.  But, by far, that isn't the only way to solve this problem! :)

Percent of Change Monopoly

I have wanted to post this for over a week now so I can tell you how it went, but we keep having –40ºF wind chills in Minnesota and school is being cancelled.  Now, I'm not complaining about a little extra free time, but I have been dying to see how this works with the kiddos!  Anyway, since the school has already been called off for Monday and Tuesday looks iffy for having school, I thought I would just post it and let you all see it.  (For those of you who use Saxon, I designed this to go with Algebra I (2007), lesson 47.) 

I wanted to do something different with my Algebra students and reviewing percent of change.  So I was thinking of something different than just a retail store markup or discount.  I started thinking about real estate and that lead me to Monopoly!  I decided that I would have my kiddos play a traditional monopoly game with a small twist.  Before they could purchase a property, they would have to calculate a markup or markdown in their property value and pay the bank the correct amount.  Also, after reading the card, they can not decide that they don't want to purchase the property.  They must follow through with the deal.  Other than that, a normal monopoly game would be played.

I thought that the competition of the game and the novelty of the new cards would be more interesting than a worksheet full of problems.  I'll update after we play with any modifications or adjustments that we made. 

Here are the cards that I made.  I left it as an editable word document so you can adjust the cards if you wanted.  There are 22 cards, one for each property for sale on the board.  I didn't make them for railroads and utility companies.  I was just going to let those go for the listed price.

Comparing Expressions

Most of my algebra kiddos are pretty good at evaluating expressions.  So, the lesson on it in the textbook should be a review.  To review, I wanted to do a quick game that wouldn't take too long and would be a good way for me to do a quick check in as to who remembered from the summer and who didn't.  The text does a lot with comparing expressions after evaluated.  I like this because it reviews two skills at once and it causes a moment of pause for most students.  They just can't whip through to the answer.

The game that I developed to review is pretty simple.  Students roll a number cube at the beginning of each round to determine the value of the variables in each expression.  Each partner draws a card with an expression on it, evaluates it, and then compares the values of the two expressions.  Finally the students write the expressions, not the evaluation, as an inequality.  I did this to match the book a little bit and to get them to stay abstract with their comparison.  We'll see how it goes when they play it for the first time.  Maybe I'll change the rules midway.

Here is the game if you would like to have it.

Some Small Group Organization...

I have never been able to find a way to quickly organize small groups and assign roles.  I have done the normal tricks of counting off and the closets birthday to _____ is the recorder.  Although it has worked fine, I just always felt like I could do a better job with it and still have a it be quick and easy.  So as I was looking through blogs and Pinterest, I found some things that I think will work well and tweaked it a bit to fit what I want.

Role Cards for Small Groups

The first thing that I found was was my group roles.  I really liked the roles that Ariane used at The Science Penguin (http://www.thesciencepenguin.com/2013/06/science-lab-teams-freebie.html) and she had a freebie to be printed and used.  I was all ready to take the made for me item when I realized that the clip art was a beaker.  I thought it didn't look like it fit in a math (and social studies) classroom.  Since I wanted roles that could be used for either of the classes that I taught, I had to do a little remixing.  Basically, I kept the roles that she had and some of her descriptions of the roles.  I changed up or added to all but the director.  I added in a spokesperson because that was a role that I really wanted.  I also added clip art that matched the role for my ELL kiddos to use as a clue about what they are to do.  I made a set of group role cards with the job descriptions for each table group in my classroom.  They will be laminated and hole punched to put on a ring for future reference. 

The next idea came from Science Gal (http://sciencegal-sciencegal.blogspot.jp/2012/09/setting-expectations-for-group-work.html).  She had a simple way to switch the roles in groups.  She assigned the students a color.  The roles were then kept in a pocket chart and a color square was put next to each role.  Whichever student was assigned that color, did that job.  So simple and easy to do!  I could easily assign roles even if it was at the last minute.  Loved it!

The last thing that I did was make badges for each group with the roles in them.  It will take me a while to learn which kids are assigned which color.  Wearing the badges will let me observe and see how kids handle the role much easier than constantly having to check who has which role.  I am going to present it to my middle school kiddos as something that happens in real life.  You get a job and you wear a badge that identifies you as having that job.  Also, I found the badge holders and clips at Walmart.  It was $1.88 for 12 of the badges or 12 of the clips.  So it wasn't too expensive to put together.  Hoping the kiddos take to them.  I think they will.

Role Badges that I made for each group.

I have gotten a few requests for the files to make these role cards.  They are on several files, so there are a lot of "Box" boxes.