Thank you Desman!

We have 35 minutes today before our Thanksgiving Day break.  What a great day to try Desman.  It is so cool to watch the kids make a face and in the process think about what they have to do to get an equation to shift and how they can limit the domain or range.  Plus, as a teacher, you just give them a code and you can see all their work.  Here is a snapshot:

#Bostonmathtweetup - ready for shop talk?

Wish that TMC existed as a year round social/rejuvenation option? Global Math Department inspired tweetups are happening worldwide December 12-13! Okay, it's just NYC and Boston so far. Don't live in either of those cities? Organize a tweetup in your own city and join in on the fun!

#bostonmathtweetup

#mathedboston

When: Saturday, December 13, 2014 at 4 pm

Where: Cornwall’s Pub, 654 Beacon Street, Boston MA

What: Connect or reconnect with math tweeps, share practices/experiences/tips, play pool/board games, MATH!

RSVP here!

Questions? Post them here in the comments! Or contact @heather_kohn or @crstn85 on Twitter

Check out the Global Math Department – we sponsor weekly virtual professional development (hosted at Big Marker) and have a weekly newsletter with blog reviews.

Who did it? A Radical Mystery.....

This was my favorite lesson of the year so far.  This was for Accelerated Algebra 2, sophomores and juniors.  We just did the lesson on radicals and are reviewing for the quiz.

I found a lesson on Teachers Pay Teachers and changed it so it was radicals and teachers in my school.  It was a lot of work to create the 10 problems, make them all work to reveal the answer correctly, and I was worried it might not be worth the time - would it be too easy, too hard, too short, or too long, but these are the risks you have to take to find something good.

I was so happy with how the lesson went.  Class was this morning, Friday morning at 8:30 am.  The kids were engaged and working hard and maybe having fun?  I taped all the clues and multiple choice answers around the room, so they were all scurrying around the room.  Me?  I was just standing there, watching.  They didn't have any questions for me.  It was perfect. They were helping each other.  The level of difficulty was great.  They worked for about 35-45 minutes on it.  Kids who got the answer first were then given the review packet to work on, but all the kids persevered and wanted to figure it out. 

In trying to make it work, there was one problem when solved had an answer of 8 (algebraically).  This clue answer told the kids the murder was by fire.  So, kids would confidently come to make and tell me the teacher, the place, and the method by fire, but they were incorrect.  Had they checked their solution, 8 did not work.  It was extraneous, so no solution.  Ahhh, back to the drawing board.  Maybe now, they will actually remember to check their answers.  This was not intentional on my part, but I loved it. 

I took some pictures of the kids working around the room.  We have a few things going on in school today/this weekend.  Tonight is the Girls' Powderpuff football game, so you see football jerseys.  It is also Keep Smiling day for Abbie (a sophomore who passed away last year due to an allergy - keepsmiling4Abbie.org )  And, the high school musical of Singin' in the Rain is happening - hence the yellow rain slicker.

Here is the link to my lesson:  Who did it? A Radical Mystery...
And, pictures of the kids working:

Busy, busy, just like the students

I coach the boys' cross country team - 56 boys on the team this year.  I am always amazed at how they well they balance everything.  Most of them are great students.  A lot of them are involved in band.  They are involved in lots of extracurricular activities.  Some of them have jobs.  Some of them do volunteer work.  Some of them have to watch younger siblings.  All of them have lots of homework.  And, yet, they find time to run and be part of our team.  Another season is winding down.  And, I feel like one of the students with something going on each night this week.

Monday...Relay for Life - 1st meeting of the year
Tuesday...I run our church's youth group - we have our youth leadership meeting to plan a few things coming up in December
Wednesday...Cross country banquet - 184 people expected and 25 seniors get to give speeches.  It will be a long evening after my busiest day in our schedule with teaching 5 in a row
Thursday...I am off to watch our high school drama group put on Singing in the Rain.  There is a lot of tap dancing in it.  I can't wait.
Friday...Is supposed to be the Powderpuff game (the girls playing flag football).  I have to work the chain gang.  Right now the weather doesn't look so good.  Hopefully it will get better so we don't have to postpone to next week.
Saturday....Date night with my husband :)

Dividing with fractions, using pennies

Yesterday, I was going to use the height of a penny in a math question on a quiz so I googled "width of a penny".  It said it was 3/4 inch.  That wasn't what I wanted, but I liked the number.  I went to bed thinking about it and woke up with this....

Maybe an actual original idea for the #MTBoS?

There has been recent discussion on blogs and twitter about how to teach dividing by fractions besides just telling the kids to multiply by the reciprocal - the why part.

It got me to thinking: how many pennies would line up on a ruler? A penny's diameter is 3/4 inch, so I did 12 divided by 3/4 but really multiplied by the reciprocal 12 times 4/3 and I got 16.  Sixteen pennies should fit on a ruler.

So, then I thought about it some more:

In just looking at 4 inches of the ruler and putting one penny in each inch, I then thought this:

So, in four inches there would be 5 pennies because four fourths makes one whole. 
Next I multiplied by 3 and got 15 - what the heck?!  Now, mind you, I woke up thinking all this at 6 am on a Saturday morning.  I knew I was wrong but it seemed to work.

It lead me to a joke (again early morning):
What does 1 penny plus 1 quarter equal?  An inch  :)  I like it - that's original too!

So, then I was thinking about 2 pennies.  Two pennies would be an inch and half so four pennies would be three inches, but then I have a whole inch left over and a penny is only 3/4 inch so I would have room for 1 penny with 1/4 left over -ahhhhhh - there it is.  I would have three 1/4's leftover and that equals my sixteenth penny.

I went wrong in thinking that four fourths makes the whole.  Only three fourths makes a whole penny. 

Pumpkins, Ghosts, Paper Clips, Barbies, and Flowers

I have a couple of review activities, fun for this time of year, a Dan Meyer activity and some flowers.

These are not original ideas and I have blogged about them before.

Ghosts in the Graveyard:   I took 12 problems and put them onto worksheets so that each team member is working on a problem and then checking with me.  If they get it correct, they get a ghost and can tape it to the board in one of four places around town.  They don't have their points assigned yet, so they just guess where they want to put them.  Before the end of class, I give 25, 50, 75, or 100 points to the different places and we see which team wins.  (I forget who I borrowed this review game from)

Trick or Treat:  I took 12 problems and wrote out all the solutions and answers.  Some were correct and some were incorrect.  I was the student.  The students play teacher.  I put the half pieces of papers in a pumpkin and call it Trick or Treat.  If they are correct, the students provide feedback and each one is worth 4 points.  If the problem is incorrect, they have to find the mistake, correct the mistake, and explain the mistake.  Then, they provide the feedback and decide how many points it deserves.  The kids are much harder graders than I am. (Again, another borrowed activity, but forgetting the original owner, sorry)

Paper Clips:  Did you know Dan Meyer is a World Record holder?  Check out the paperclip challenge to see his first attempt.  I asked the kids what they would need to know if they wanted to try and break the World Record for the length of a paperclip chain.  Then, we practiced.  They really liked the practicing time and were getting good at it.  We did 1 minute, 2 minutes, and 3 minutes.  Their hands were shaking during the 3 minutes.  We read about Dan's journey trying to break the record and felt his failure the first time.  But, then he tried again and we read about that here.  We watched this video about it here.

Barbie Bungee:  I did Barbie Bungee for the first time last year (blog here) and loved it.  I have four boys at home, so I didn't own any Barbies.  They are expensive, so I bought some cheap ones at Kmart.  They worked but lost their arms, legs, and heads and they were really lightweight.  Read about where I got my Barbies this year here.  I definitely recommend the real Barbies.  What a difference!  The kids had a lot of fun.  One girl was leaving and I heard, " I wish we could do stuff like that every day."  I am trying :)

And, flowers.  Below are some violets (I think) the Foreign Language department brought me this week.  It was a tough week at school and I loved coming in to find these one day and then the next day they had already grown taller.  It is a dark, rainy, and raw week and I think these flowers look like they are standing tall and trying to stretch their little heads towards any hope of sun. 

Cups and Mistakes

We did cup stacking again this year in Algebra 1.  I love it.  We did it with big whiteboards and their work was great:

And, in a different class we are working with integers.  This was an interesting mistake I have not seen before.  Makes sense but it is still not correct.