Planning for the spring #mtbos30

The problem with being creative yesterday afternoon into the night is that my brain was swirling.  I had a hard time falling asleep, dreamt about my breakout box, and woke up thinking about all I had to do.

Having a lot to do means I need to delegate too.  This is a "light" spring for me but still pretty busy.

Tues, May 10th - fishing club.  The rain will stop and it will finally be 70, hopefully we will catch something this time.  I asked our team captain to email the team and remind them.

Thursday, May 12th - Son#2 comes home from college :)

Friday, May 13th - Relay for Life.  I am on the committee so I will be up all night helping out and that means sleeping all day on Saturday, May 14th.

Sunday, May 15th - Son #1 will run a triathlon sprint in town, and I will go cheer him on.  My cross country team will volunteer at it, so I need to email those reminders out.

Sunday, May 15th in the evening - I help with Youth Group and we will have our end of the year get together - Sundaes on Sunday, so I need to write up the grocery list and ask an adult to shop.  I will come up with the games we will play.

Thursday, May 19th - Son #3 and I will go into Boston to serve at a homeless shelter.  I love spending this time with him.

Friday, May 20th - Son #4's 15th birthday so out to dinner.  Also, Son #3's Junior prom but he decided not to go.  I will go to the school and help out with the Grand March.

Saturday, May 21st - cookout for Son #4's birthday - means shopping, cooking, and cleaning before and after.

Sunday, May 22nd - Baccalaureate mass and dinner for seniors at our church.

 Early June - breakout box for Algebra 2 - prepare, copy, plan, get locks and boxes ready to play

June 3rd - graduation and then some grad parties in June.  My niece is graduating!

Thursday, June 9th - Mission meeting - our youth group is heading to Appalachia, WV by bus on June 26th.  I need to get ready for the meeting with some prayers, songs, icebreakers, and activities.

Week of June 26th - Mission Trip to WV, need to do so much planning for this!

I say this is a "light" spring because next spring Son#2 graduates from college, Son#3 graduates from high school, and Son#4 turns 16 and gets his driver's permit.  So, I am trying to enjoy this spring.

A creative Saturday #mtbos30

My morning started off not too great as I woke up early to take my Junior son to take his SATs but he couldn't find his wallet.  We torn the house upside down to no avail, even called and woke up the friend whose car he was last in to see if it fell into the car.  Nope, it fell out at Chipotle.  So, he didn't take the SATs today.

I zumba'd my anger off and came home and got creative.  I finished a sewing project up so I can finally get my sewing machine off my dining room table.

And, then I started my Accelerated Algebra 2 breakout for June after our last test but before final exams.  I created one for our church youth group and it was so fun for me to create and then fun to watch the kids do it.  I do get a little too convoluted in my thinking though.  I am trying to keep this one more straightforward so my colleague can recreate it.  I can't give too much away but I started with a 100% charge on my computer and it is now down to 54%.  I still have a lot to go (as I am watching The Sixth Sense and getting distracted).

It is "Escape from the Amusement Park".  I have 4 kids shooting the basketball at the basketball game with different parabolic information given to try to figure out who gets it in the hoop.

I have three bumper cars traveling in ellipses and we will need to find out when all three hit.

There will be a rollercoaster that is a polynomial.

There will be a ferris wheel with a trig equation.

There will be a concession stand problem where they buy 3 different things and need to figure out the prices.

There will be 5 games that will lead to QR codes with a mix of problems (maybe logs and trig)

I even used desmos so one of them leads to a desmos code.  I had to make another code to get to the desmos code. 

It is a ton of work but I hope they enjoy it.

Oh, one thing I learned is that if you google your name with name like "Jennifer name" you can find cool clip art like this one:

 

Stations for Rationals #mtbos30

I have done these stations in years past and like the mix and getting the kids vertical.

I call it Noah's Ark Review because they are supposed to do 2 at each station.  It is appropriate after a week of rain.

Stations Review for Rational Functions

I have station 1 at the window with practicing graphing rational functions.  (Algebra 1)


I have station 2 at the back board with solving rational equations.

Station 3 is on a side table with 1 die.  The students toss the die to get two numbers, one for x and one for y.  They are told y varies inversely with x.  Then, they toss it one more time.  This is a new X value.  Find y.

Station 4 is at a group of desks with 1 die and it is word problems.  One is a work problem and one is a distance = rate times time problem.  They toss the die to make their problems. 

Station 5 is at my favorite little green table with little white boards found a while back at Target and a coin that has written on it a multiplication sign and a division sign.  The kids pick four boards.  Put one over another to create fractions, then flip the coin to see if they have to multiply or divide. 



Station 6 is at a group of desks with a coin and colored paper with rational expressions.  The pick one of each color (there are two colors) and then flip a coin with a plus and minus written on it to make their own problems.

A Paper Crane Made My Day #mtbos30

I came into school on another rainy, dreary day to find this little yellow guy waiting for me on my desk:







                                         







I don't know who he is from but it brought a smile to my face because paper cranes remind me of my cousin Joe.  He was born in 1991 as a twin to his brother, Sam.  But, Joey was born with half a heart.  Oh, he was a fighter.  He learned to do everything Sam did, but when he was almost 2, he had to have a surgery that was followed by a stroke, leaving him with difficulty on one side of his body.  He lived in VT but was treated at Boston Children's Hospital.  I was his only family around so I visited him a lot and donated a lot of blood over the course of his visit.  He wasn't able to walk right after and talking was slurred.  But, he had a lot of therapy and walked with assistance.  Joey was such a joker kind of guy.  He also loved movies.  He got a job in a movie store.  He loved Disney too.  And, he loved paper cranes. 

Joey passed away in June of 2011, write before his favorite holiday, the 4th of July.  He was just shy of 20 years old. 

His mom has since made a lot of paper cranes and on the one year anniversary of his passing, they released them in a stream.  People from all over send her paper cranes. 

So, on this rainy week, a yellow paper crane was just what I needed.

3-Act Leaky Faucet #mtbos30

In accelerated algebra I, we are working on rational functions, so I thought I would open with Dan Meyer's 3 Act on The Leaky Faucet. 

Act 1: We watched the video of the ducky in a bathroom sink with a leaking faucet.  I asked them what the question might be.  One student asked the all important question - WHY is the faucet leaking?  We decided to answer - How long will it take to fill the sink?  I asked them to write down a guess.  They were working in groups of four on big whiteboards.

Act 2:  They are getting really good at these and know what information they need to ask for.  They asked for the "area" of the sink, which we were able to determine as a class she meant to ask for the volume of the sink.  They asked for the rate, so I gave it to them and they got to work. They quickly discovered they needed to actually write down their units to keep it all straight.  I allowed them to use the internet to figure out how many milliliters are in a gallon.  Four out of five groups got it but I didn't tell them.  I showed them with Act 3.

Act 3: Reveal the time-lapse of the sink filling up.  They were excited at first, but then, wait, oh, is that hours, oh, we must be wrong. Then, they noticed, no, maybe we were right. Ahhhhh, yes, we were right! 

Wrap up:  I asked one volunteer to explain her process to the whole class to help the group that didn't get it.  They were getting hung up on the drops which they really didn't need.

Have you tried any 3-Acts yet? 

Teacher Appreciation Video #mtbos30

Due to the students work on a video, my post is easy for #mtbos 30 day 2 (May 3rd).

We had a faculty meeting yesterday and this video was shared with us.  The students put it together for us to tell us how much they appreciate us.  We work with a great student body!

Video

Let's Do May #mtbos30 (day 1 on day 2)

Let's Do May!  On Friday, I had a prep period in my classroom - yippee!  Doesn't happen often but when it does - I get productive around my room.  I treated it like the beginning of the school year.  I washed the board and added new markers.  I did my new May calendar at the back of the board.  I made new seating charts for each class as I do at the beginning of each month.  I cleaned out all my old papers for the past unit for recycling. 
                                       

It was so nice to come in on a rainy Monday in May and have everything fresh!  It is supposed to rain all week which is not great for my running schedule or for fishing club.  It is good for my tutoring and for all the kids taking AP exams, so good luck to them!

We have Relay for Life on May 13th and Prom on May 20th so an exciting month for sure.  We have AP exams and Math exams, plus SATs this Saturday - so a LOT of testing. 

I don't want to wish the month away because I honestly don't know where March and April went. 

So, bring on May.

(I am going to try to do #mtbos30 which is blogging for 30 days in May.  I missed May 1st so this is my first post in the series.  Will you join us?