First Page of This Year's INB!

Now that there are only two weeks until teachers have to report, I have officially decided that it is time for me to begin panicking and get some stuff started and other stuff finished.  I started to put together my INB for my algebra class.  I only have a very rough start and will share when I get a few more things in it.  Some foldables are still in prototype phase and all the kinks are still being worked out of them! :)

I did however get the first page finished and I am really excited about it.  I originally decided that I would have the first page of the students notebooks be a "Math about Me" page and I went to my trusty friend, Google, to find some images for inspiration.  Most of the ones I had seen were for elementary grades.  Then I came across this one that was posted on "Shut the Door and Teach".

Template available at TPT. 

I really liked that the students made expressions that went with the numbers that were about them.  I really loved that it connected to our second topic of the year – order of operations!  I am still working the plan out, but I think we can spend some time double checking each others' "Figure Me Out" page as a warm-up or practice activity. 

The example above was for fourth grade, so I needed to put some guidelines in place for my middle school students.  In the directions, I said that they needed to use fractions, parentheses, exponents, square roots, etc. to write their expressions.  The expressions had to be at least 3 terms as well, to stop 9 + 1 being the expression for 10.  I also hope that my example will inspire them to be tricky and challenging.  Here is what I did:

 

I will fill in my self portrait by the time that the kiddos see it.  I also forgot to use a square root somewhere, so I have to fix a sticky note!  The answers are under the sticky notes, so after the students evaluate the expression they can check and see if they are right.  I think it is an easy entry point for students to get back into the groove of math.

Update (8/19/14):  I didn't realize that the author of Shut the Door and Teach had a template available on her TPT store.  Due to copyright, I can't keep the template I formatted to fit in my INB available for free download.   

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! 

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.  

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.

"Hidden" Points in Point-Slope Linear Equations

Just a quick idea today.  My kiddos have been struggling to correctly identify the point in equations that use point-slope form for linear equations.  We have talked about finding the "hidden" point in the equation.  I know that the point is there in plain sight, but for my kiddos they can't see it.  We have worked on it and they are getting it, but it will need to be refreshed when we return from Spring break.

So, what I decided to do for a quick refresher was to have them look at a variety of equations and identify the point and then plot the point onto a coordinate grid.  If they identify all of the points correctly, then the graph will be a picture and they will know that they did it correctly.  I made the worksheet below, but I am tempted to make it into something more active than a worksheet, but not sure what yet.  I'll post if I change it into something else.  Feel free to use it if you think that it will help your kiddos.

Also, since the kiddos are good at identifying the slope of a line and knowing what it means, I didn't focus on the slopes of the lines.  The slopes also don't match the lines in the pictures.  My focus here was to identify a point and then to make the worksheet self checking by having the points make a picture.

Frayer Model As A Summary

This idea came from having a sub for my math class (Saxon, Course 3, Lesson 43 for any Saxon users out there).  I had made a notes sheet for the class and asked the sub to have them cut it in half, fold it in half, and label appropriately "surface area" and "lateral surface area". 

As I was writing the sub notes and looking at the samples that I had made, I just wasn't happy.  I knew that this concept was hard for students to grasp how it is different from two dimensional figures.  They can work the formulas pretty well, but understanding the formulas...well, not as much.  I decided that instead of having the kiddos just label the front of the the two "card style" foldables, it was a great place to put a Frayer model for each vocabulary word.  Also, a great way for me to check in the next day and see what the kids understood and where we could clarify.  So, the picture is my rough sketch of what I wanted. 

I had always thought about using the Frayer model as an opening vocabulary activity, not as a summary and check in for understanding.  I feel like this was a "duh" moment and others have been doing this for years.  However, if there is anyone like me and is just realizing that this could be really good,  I'd love to hear where you tried this and how it went. 

I also left the sub a bunch of different sized food boxes for the kiddos to measure and practice calculating surface area and lateral area.  A pretty standard surface area activity.  Here is the recording sheet that I had them use if anyone can use it feel free.

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.

Classifying Real Numbers is a Cakewalk?

I was totally inspired by a conversation I was having with my dad last Saturday.  We were talking about a local grocery store chain's 45th anniversary celebration.  One of the many events that they were having was a cake walk.  Numbers were placed around the store and an announcement was made that the cake walk would be beginning and if you were near a number to please go and stand on it.  Then a number was called and whoever was standing on that number won a cake.  I thought it was a really cute gimmick.

In the conversation, I was telling my dad that they should make it more of a challenge to win.  They should announce something like, "If you are standing on an irrational number and know why it is irrational, you win!"  or "If your number is a natural number, you win!"  My dad just laughed at me and told me "I'm such a math teacher."  But, I really started thinking about it.  What a fun way to review and move while doing it!  So after some thought, I came up with a way to modify the traditional cake walk and have a fun review game too!

I first of all made the traditional numbers for people to walk around and stand by when the music stops.  Since space is limited, I am going to have the kiddos clear their desks and put the paper plates on top of them.  Then they will walk around the desks until the music stops.  Whatever desk they are in front of is their number.

Next, I made numbers to pull out of a bucket that matched those on the paper plates.  With each number, I have a question that the student must answer.  I've embedded the questions as a Word document, so it can be edited. 


If the student answers it correctly, they can choose a "cupcake" from the board and win a prize.  I am going to give coupons for bonus points, sitting by a friend, no homework, etc.  I did a Google search for free clip art and cupcakes and found some cute ones!  I enlarged them on my computer, printed, and cut them out.  I then glued them to the backside of a paper plate.  I am going to just stand them along my chalk ledge.  When the cupcake is chosen, I'll flip it over.

Also, there are only 12 cupcakes.  Not everyone wins at this game and I know some kiddos will be disappointed.  My reason for this is to make it easier to just draw another number if the student is wrong or doesn't know.  I don't like having to chose another student when prizes are involved.

I want to use the cupcakes for other review games.  So I decided to make my coupons have the cupcake that was chosen on it.  Here is a picture of what I've done.

I'll update after I try it with my 8th grade Algebra students.  I think they will have a blast!

Update:
I did this activity with my Algebra class on Friday and we played for about 20 minutes.  I think that we could have gone longer, but I had other things to accomplish in the class period as well.  So, yes, I had to be the mean teacher and stop the fun. :(  

It was totally engaging and they were starting to think about where they wanted to be when the music stopped.  There was more than just fun happening.  I enjoyed watching them play and I started thinking about how more of them could play at once.  One thing that I though of was to pull two or three numbers and have some type of face off.  Maybe there could be red and blue numbers.  The teams could get points for correctly answering but they still have to change places between rounds.  I'm just brainstorming right now.  I just know that I was pleased with the activity and engagement.   

Comparing Real Numbers

I have noticed in the past that there are some students in algebra who can't set up the real number line correctly.  With that, I have noticed that placing numbers on a real number line is challenging for some students as well. 

For the lesson that reviews ordering and comparing real numbers, I was thinking that it would be a good idea to make a number line and do some ordering of real numbers.  I wanted something that would be compact and fit into the ISN. 

I thought about using a piece of paper folded in half because I liked the idea that zero would be on the fold and in the middle of the line.  From there it was just a matter of putting positive and negative numbers on the number line.  I also added tick marks for every tenth.  I thought that this would help to place the numbers more accurately.

I then used some colored dot stickers cut in half to mark the position of two sets of numbers on the number line.  The stickers were a bit too big, but ultimately did the job.  I just made sure that the straight cut lined up with the numbers position on the number line. 

The lesson also deals with adding and subtracting real numbers.  I layered some sticky notes so that I could highlight two things:
1) The procedure the book uses for adding and subtracting real numbers with mixed signs, and
2) Reminders about fractions needing the same denominator and about lining up the decimal points.

I have been finding a lot of uses for sticky notes in the ISNs that I am trying to put together for the students.  (I hope I'm not alone in saying that I use sticky notes for everything and could probably join a 12 step program if one existed.)  I have been using them to highlight steps in procedures and to save space by layering ideas similar to the picture at the left.  Does anyone have other ways that they use sticky notes in their ISNs?

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.

Order of Operations

 I have been thinking about two lessons in my text that are three lessons apart from each other.  The first is a basic review of the order of operations and the other is about nested grouping symbols.

My thoughts have been very focused on how to make a quality graphic organizer or foldable that will help my kiddos think through the order of operations.  They tend to work from left to right which causes a problem in so many ways.

So the pictures are my graphic organizer for the review lesson.  I loved how Sarah at Math=Love (http://mathequalslove.blogspot.com) organized the letters to PEMDAS.  So I decided to use that as the left hand side of my table and then have 3 examples that come after it.  I wanted the kiddos to think about each letter of PEMDAS and decide if they had parentheses or exponents in the problem and not just start at the left and work right.

I am going to have them color code the letters of PEMDAS which are on their sheet already and add the  L –> R above multiplying/dividing and addition/subtraction.  Then, using their colors, I want them to color code the steps on the problem before we begin to solve anything.  Again, I am hoping to stop them from simply working left to right.

After we have done all of this, we are going to work the problem.  The students will fill in one box at a time as they work the problem following the order of operations.  My other goal of this graphic organizer is to have them see what showing their work looks like.  Sneaky, huh? :)  Also, if you like this graphic organizer, you can download it at the end of this post.

The next lesson on nested grouping symbols always seems difficult for the kiddos.  I think it is terminology.  They don't use "inner most" in their vocabulary often and "inner most" changes position in problems.  I wanted a foldable that would help them to see that they start at the inner most parentheses and work their way out.

To do this, I took a fairly simple problem and three different colored pieces of paper.  I folded them over about an inch and then glued them together at the fold.  I wrote the problem so that each part was on a different color.  I also number the order in which to do the parts.

Students will then lift the flap to reveal the value of the expression.  Then, they will work the second part. 

Lifting that flap reveals that the value of the green section's expression and the rest of the expression is solved using the order of operations.  The value of the entire expression is circled after all of the operations are preformed.

This last picture is how the page in the students INB will look.  After the initial foldable, I decided not to make another for the notebook.  However, if time, I would love to give them a problem in the next day or so and ask them to make the foldable for their problem.  It would be neat to display them in the classroom.

Anyway, I elected to have the students write two additional examples and highlight the step they are going to calculate before writing the next line.  The text also throws in the absolute value symbol as a grouping symbol, so I need to say something about it.  Thus, the note about absolute value at the end.

Variable, Factors, Terms, Oh My...

Lesson 2 in the Saxon algebra book focuses on the key vocabulary associated with expressions.  The text focuses on the words: constant, variable, coefficient, factor, and term.  So, to make the lesson not just a list of vocabulary words or a bunch of Frayer models, I opted for some simple foldables that define the key vocabulary.  The picture above is how I am setting up the INB page with the students.  The pictures below show an up close view of two of them.

The outside of the top foldable.

When students lift the flap, they will see the definition of the vocabulary word.

For the terms of an expression, I wanted the students to see it separated out more, so I made this accordion style foldable.

Inside each term is in it's own box and is labeled at the top as the first, second, third, etc. term of the expression.

What I really like about this lesson is the processing that I am going to have the kiddos do.  The Saxon teacher's edition has math background notes and in this lesson, they have a Venn diagram to show how the vocabulary words are related.  They also wrote some statements that were true based on the diagram.  I turned the statements into true/false questions and the kiddos need to use the diagram to determine if the statement is true or false.  I then ask the kiddos to write two true/false questions of their own based on the diagram.  I want to have them swap notebooks and see if a friend can answer their question correctly.  I think that it is a good tie in with the first lesson that also dealt with sets and Venn diagrams.  We'll see what happens in September!

System of Equations Review

This was a quick and easy review that I made for my Algebra students while a substitute was in my classroom.  The students rolled integer dice to fill in the blanks.  Then they had to graph their system, solve it by substitution, and finally, solve by elimination.  My goal was that they would hopefully see that there was one method that was easier and start to wonder why.  We'll see what they thought  when I go back on Monday!

This is just a part of the review.  I can't upload a pdf.  There were two others on the back for them to work on.  If you like the pdf, I'll figure out a way to get it to you.