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.