Day 30

or what I like to call "Padlet Disaster."

I showed them this picture (from this website):

and invited them to post questions on a Padlet page that I created.  

Some of them did better on this assignment than others.  We'll try it again.

Day 29

Adding positive and negative integers..

"Finding Errors"

Day 28

turns out that if you multiply the suggested serving size by the number of servings, you get 1120.  While there were 1108 cheese balls, there were also 2 "guesses" that just happened to be 1120.  Coincidence?  Hmm...

Day 27

Estimating irrational numbers...

Day 26

More estimating.  I walked in this morning with this under my arm and the 6th grade history teacher said, "about 600."  I said, "I'll put your name in for the contest," and he said, "Is that really what it's for?"  What did he think?   In any case, the principal thinks she'll win...

Day 23

Visual Patterns with Algebra, poor, bedraggled M&M's with 6th graders, and a fancy trick from a student.

Day 22

Compound interest is not in the 7th grade standards, but it's in our curriculum.  I'm okay with this, because you're never too young to learn that you end up with more money if you let it accumulate.

Day 21

If you're going to estimate how long it would take to drink all the water from an olympic-sized pool, you're going to need to know how fast you can drink. 

To practice conversions, we calculated how long it would take to drink the pool, how many flushes it would provide, and how much it would cost to fill it with jello.  Thanks to stupidcalculations.com for the idea!

I set it up with the story of Olympic Hero Eric Moussambani, who had reportedly never seen an olympic-sized pool until he arrived in Sydney to compete in the 2000 Olympics.  Despite a difficult swim - which he looked as though he might not even finish - he set a personal best and a national record for Equitorial Guniea.  I chose this clip because the clips featuring the actual commentators felt snarky and a little mean.

Day 20

I'm glad I saved these. It seems that every class does percent error eventually...

Day 19

is/of will only get you so far.  We started with that, but will need part/whole to do word problems on Monday.

What is kind of fun about this pic is that I took it with my document camera.  It's the single greatest piece of technology I've added this year!  Well, ok.  It's the only piece of technology I've added this year.  But it makes letting students show their work super easy.

Day 18

percent/decimal/fraction foldable was a disaster.  It didn't illustrated what I wanted, and didn't have enough room for process, just answers.

 (I don't know how to adjust the orientation of the photo.  It's not like that when I view it regularly on my computer.)

Fortunately, the second foldable - operations with exponents - went much better.  Great questions in this class, too!

Day 17

Tall square pitcher holds 3 1/4 cups. One kid all day got the estimate exactly right. Everybody else learned "percent error" to find the winner.

Day 16

Today two classes were reviewing for a test.  I showed this video about an auctioneer championship.






Then I told them we were having an auction.  Students had 10 minutes to complete a review sheet individually.  Then, each table compared answers and discussed how confident they were about each one.  Then each table was given 1000 "dollars" to bid on the questions.  Once purchased, we went over the answers, and the team that had "purchased" the most correct questions got a prize. 

Day 14

Seriously normal day.  depressingly so. 

The Algebra students revolted because "it is too hard" and "you didn't teach us this" - both of which are simply not true.  The first question had four parts.  One girl did the  first three parts right, made a sign error on the fourth part, and threw up her hands refusing to work the rest of the homework.

These are my 8th grade Algebra students; they're supposed to be the brightest we've got.  Where along the line did they learn that they can't do it if the teacher doesn't tell them how?  Very difficult situation.


 The highlight of the day was probably when my principal came into my classroom.  We'd had a discussion the day before and she said I needed a signal to call for their attention.  I told her about "No banana hat - no dinner" and (to her credit) she didn't flinch or look confused when I said it.  But today she came in while we doing group work and she said "No banana hat" in a regular voice.  I think she was genuinely surprised - or amused - when they said, "No dinner" and looked at her.  This was a big deal for me.  She doesn't think I'm funny, so even a hint of amusement is a win in my book!

Day 13

Yesterday I brought in my toaster. They drew quadrilaterals on shrink film and recorded side lengths. I shrunk 'em, and today we measured the "after" side lengths. In one class, it worked perfectly and showed the proportion. In the other class, it wasn't as tidy. I just had to shrug and say "real life is never as tidy as the problems in your math book!"

I had a moment of panic when the shrink film started to curl.  Fortunately I decided to "keep calm and read the instructions" that said curling was normal, and it would lay flat before it was finished.

Day 12

For fun, we estimated.  The can was just for perspective.  We also calculated percent error to determine the winning guess.  This was necessary because some students estimated in ounces, some in cups, some in mL - and it was appropriate since percent error is a 7th grade standard!  Absolutely everyone guessed too high.

Day 11

Best part of today? "Mrs. Phillips, do you have a ruler I can use?"

Day 10

In Math 7, we are beginning a unit on ratios and proportions.  Today we did the Mathalicious lesson on ratios of strings.  It starts with this video.