Shots for SOLs

You look up at the clock ... several minutes to go before the bell rings. It's the perfect time to take some shots for SOLs, a quick fun sports game to review facts and concepts from today's (or any) lesson. All you need is a prepared list of review questions, a Nerf-like or soft (plush) ball, and a receptacle that represents a basketball goal. For the latter, I've used a toy basketball net that can be hung in front of the room. This week I used a cardboard box that measured 1' X 1' and placed it on a table (desk) in a corner up front. I use an LCD projector to flash questions on the screen (Jeopardy style). You can also be read questions aloud and/or give students a way to solve problems on paper. Then I choose one student to answer. Correct answers earn one point with a chance to score more points by attempting a shot from one of three designated point zones. One point for a "free throw" (about 5 feet from basket), two points from 10 feet away, and three points from 15 feet away (the back of the classroom). Points can be used for extra credit (or any way you choose). It gets noisy just like a basketball game, but I've captured their motivation with a bell ringer of a review game.

GCF and LCM Confusion

Sixth graders always confuse GCF and LCM. We were brainstorming one afternoon and came up with an idea to help the kids remember GCF and LCM. This is really helpful when a testing question asks for the LCM of 15 and 21, and most the kids see these numbers and want to answer, "It's three!"
Well, it's not. That's the GCF.
So, we use a graphic that looks like the one to the right (hope you can see them). The F is morphed into a division sign, and the M is morphed into a multiplication sign. The division sign is a reminder that common factors are numbers that DIVIDE into 15 and 21. The multiplication sign is a reminder that common multiples are the numbers that are MULTIPLES of 15 and 21. Every little bit helps.

I'll be starting SOL 7.8 next week (Surface Area and Volume of Cylinders and Rectangular Prisms). Our school in general had great success last year with this SOL. One of the strategies I like to do is to involve as many household and hands on items as possible. One assignment I used last year was to have students find 3 rectangular prisms and 3 cylinders in their home and determine the surface area and volume of each. This allowed them choice in the assignment and many were drawn to their favorite possessions. In the classroom I set up a "yardsale" with items I owned that involve circles, cylinders, and prisms. For instance: tires, razor scooters, bicycles, boxes, etc. Students were grouped into pairs and had to measure and compute to get the volume and surface area as appropriate. We also took a "field trip" to the cafeteria and media center to measure columns and pillars and perform computations. These were, of course, after the students received step by step instuctions on how to solve these problems. I made these step almost identical to how we taught SOL 7.7 .

Test Review

My students found it very helpful when we reviewed for the nine weeks test that I had stations set up in the room with each focusing on a different SOL. I had seven stations set up to focus on the SOLs that gave my students a challenge. I kept the groups to 3-4 students and grouped the students with different area of "expertise" so that they could help each other out. It was very helpful to the students and to myself to have the smaller group setting so that I was able to work with groups that really struggled on a SOL individually and not as a whole class.

Scale Drawing Activity

While teaching SOL 7.6 (proportions), I use an activity for scale drawings. The students work in groups of two and have to produce a scale drawing of the classroom. The first step is to make a simple sketch of the room. They use this sketch to record their measurements of the room. Once they have completed all measurements, they have to use proportions to come up with the measurements for the scale drawing. I used the "window" method for proportions this year. "K" is what you know; "?" is what you are calculating; and the units go on left side. You can easily differentiate this activity by adding more details in the room (desks, shelves, computers, etc.)

I Can Learn

My school has adopted I Can Learn as a form of instruction/remediation. I Can Learn is a program that does complete lessons on different topics. Each lesson contains a pretest, warm-up, lesson presentation (videos), tutor, independent practice questions, quiz, and journal entry. Any or all of these options can be included, depending on the need of the student.

I use I Can Learn mostly for remediation. What I love most about this program is that I can put students on differentiated paths that address their weaknesses. It also offers a different approach to teaching the lesson. If a student did not get the concept in class with my presentation, the videos/animation on the computer may capture attention and get the concept across. This program also helps with students' note taking. During the lesson presentation, it frequently pauses and tells students to copy information into their notebook.

I am seeing success more than last year with this program and look forward to even more.

The Coordinate Plane

This month my PreAlgebra class is focused on the coordinate plane. We started off just graphing points. I stole this from another teacher, but this trick seems to work well to remind them how to graph a point. I tell them to imagine we want to get on an elevator. We have to walk to the elevator first, before we can go up or down. This helps them to remember to go along the x-axis first and then go up for the y-value. We then have to focus on taking an equation, making a table of solutions, and graph those solutions. I try to incorporate as much vocabulary as I can when doing this. I always call the list of x-values the domain and the list of y-values the range. I also insist they call x the independent variable and y the dependent variable. That way the vocabulary is becoming cemented in their minds before I ask a specific question on it.

Days before holidays provide complete workout

My first blogs were published twice in cyberspace, but somehow they never made it to our math forum. I decided to share what I originally blogged and get your feedback anyways.

Holiday breaks often present unique opportunities for middle schoolers making sense out of practical math problems. A couple of days before Thanksgiving the students and I brainstorm the foods we feast on. Next, we'll compose 7-to-9 course menus that will feed up to 12 people. Then, with $200 to spend, student pairs rummage through the grocery pages to identify food items and prices that satisfy their selected menus and budget. Some pairs cut out the food items from these pages to illustrate their table settings. Not surprisingly, the students are engaged in math talk as they demonstrate the depth of their proportional reasoning skills by using unit rates to figure out how much they spend altogether and per person. This activity also allows me to pre-assess their ability to keep and maintain a checkbook registry.

Good ole Ma and Pa

This little tip was actually given to me by one of my students a couple of years ago, but it has proven to be very helpful. I have found that my students confuse the fact that they should add for perimeter and multiply for area. I teach them all to remember their "MA" and "PA." This helps them to remember to "Mulitply Area" and "Perimeter Add." It works well for simple perimeter and area.

My student's are getting ready to tackle the fun unit on percents, fractions and decimals . In an effort to "keep it real", I download a popular restaurant menu, print enough for the entire class, have the students order an appetizer, entree, drink and dessert. They have to keep their meal close to $30 and compute tax and tip rate based on our locality. I have full participation on this activity as many of my students haven't been to a restaurant whre they can order off a menu.

Back to Work

I have missed being in the classroom. I have been out on maternity leave for a few months now but am gearing up to get back to class! I look forward to catching up with this blog as a part of that.

Reviewing for the Midterm Exam

My Geometry students are scheduled to take their Midterm Exam next week. To review all the material that we have learned in class from the beginning of the school year, I asked them to work on a group project. For each class, I have my students to separate themselves into eight groups (3-4 people/group). Since we have covered eight SOLs so far, each group is responsible for presenting the key concepts for one of the SOLs. To help them to be more organized and ensure that they all have an active role in the project, I assigned each student a "job" in each group [1st member: Find all the key concepts from the given SOL; 2nd member: Record all the key concepts; 3rd member: Present the key concepts (give examples) to the class; 4th member: Leader of the group, assist all members].

It worked very well with my Geometry classes last year, which was the first year I implemented this "project" idea into my review lessons. I am not sure if my students will benefit from this activity this year, but I will definitely let you all know. However, most of students told me that they like working on a project like this. Compared to other subjects, they said that they rarely have projects like this in their math classes.

Functions

We are currently trying to conquer the daunting task of teaching Tables, Graphs, Rules and Ordered Pairs. We approach this by breaking each down and give it a day. We also focus on the students completing a 4-square frayer model. In the middle we have the Rule and the other outside squares include a Table, Ordered Pairs, Mapping and Graphing. Once we have taught all of the areas we then start them anywhere on the 4-square and have them complete the entire thing. Hope this helps.

Unifix Cubes

In our class we are beginning Central Tendency next week and I am excited about the activity that uses unifix cubes to help students explore mean, median, mode and range. Unifix cubes are similar to Lego's in the sense that they are small plastic blocks that link together. Students grab a handful of these blocks from a bucket and line up at the front of the room. They count their individual blocks and then put themselves in order from least to greatest. The students can find the range by the lowest and highest students stepping forward, the mode by seeing which number of blocks appears most often, the median by the middle student, and then finally the mean. This is the interesting part. The students begin to "share their blocks" so that each student has the same number of blocks. Most of the time it does not work out this way and so the students can estimate that the mean will be between the two numbers of the amount of blocks the students have. A chart can be kept under the doc cam so that the actual mathematics can be worked out simultaneously. I find the students enjoy this hands on exploration and they also remember a lot from it.

IDK

IDK are three letters that I wish students did not know how to use. With the end of the quarter and semester upon us, these letters are the scariest letters in the alphabet. Winter break is responsible for an increase number of students using these letters as their answer to math questions. I guess my main problem is why they are using the letters. Is it because they really don't know or is it because they just didn't try? How do you fix the problem? Do you increase review time before exams or hold after school sessions? Does anyone have any ideas on how to decrease the use of the dreaded letters and increase student retention?

Patterns

We spent the first 2 weeks back from our break going over patterns and rules. We really hit the students hard with patterns the first week and let them develop their own rules. I spent a week one summer a few years back in a Maryline Burns Algebra techniques class and learned al ot from it that allowed me to apply her methods. The students did very well in developing rules and this week adopted quite well to a more formalized approach to rule development.
My only regret is that since I teach 8th grade pre-algebra we stop at the point of developing rules from graphs and tables, It seems like it would be a natural progression to teach the students about slope at this point while we have their interest instead of waiting another year. Or maybe this is a necessary stopping point, I would be interested in hearing some opinions on what the rest of you think.

Factors or Multiples??

Each year, I find that my sixth grade students have great difficulty distinguishing between factors and multiples. A colleague of mine shared an idea that I love!! She suggested telling the students that there are only a few factors but there are millions of multiples! I always find myself stuttering the words ffffew ffffactors and mmmmillions of mmmmultiples!! It is amazing how reciting this has helped so many of them remember the difference!

Back to school!

Welcome back. I spent a significant part of each class trying to review classroom expectations with respect to behavior and academic responsibility. With the excessive time off from storm weather to Thanksgiving and then the winter break it seemed that behavior and performance steadily declined. I would like to consider a behavior contract so if anyone has any suggestions I would certainly appreciate any inputs. Has anyone experienced success with this?

Testing

This is THE month for questioning and evaluating our students' progress (in our school district). There have been several meetings at the city level, lead teachers, and content that emphasizes the importance of the midterm exam that is coming up this month. I must admit this is my first year teaching mathematics and have enjoyed reading the wonderful ideas of how to review and reinforce SOL objectives every week.

I worry about how to be sure my students have the concepts needed to be successful on this exam. I am struggling most with the wisdom and skill of having several students in my room needing help with several different skills and getting all of them what they need. I am used to teaching science and social studies where skills are more all-purpose. I am learning quickly that math is not so easily covered with "the masses."