Coordinate Planes

I said I would try to post more. It's still September, so I haven't missed too much time! ;) I do need to get better at taking photos, because we've done quite a few fun things in room 204, but I just don't have them documented. I did remember to snag a few photos of my 6th graders playing my math version of Battleship. They played "Civil War" style and were either Team Captain America or Team Iron Man. They had to hide their Avengers and then try to guess the locations of the other person's. Lots of requests to replay this game!!

      

Book Review: Solo

Solo

by Kwame Alexander

I LOVED The Crossover by Kwame Alexander. I first read it when I took over the Summer Reading program a few years ago. I fell in love with it and knew my students would love it. I couldn't wait for summer to get closer so I could finally introduce it to the students. I was right. The students who picked it for their summer reading devoured that book. Nothing made me more happy than seeing a group of boys who I usually had to cajole to do some reading during independent reading time ask me if they could sit in a circle and take turns reading aloud from the book because they were so excited to read it. I'm pretty sure at that moment, my heart was doing the snoopy dance.

Why did I know the kids would love it so much? First of all, it was so well written. It was, and probably still is, the only book written in verse I actually like. I'll admit it. I don't enjoy reading poetry and I don't prefer books in prose. But Kwame Alexander wrote this book with such rhythm. My students could hear the rap music in his words as they read. It also told a compelling story. All I knew going into it was that it was a "basketball book". It was so much more than that. It was about two twins, who yes are basketball stars, but they are also navigating life through middle school, finding their way, and dealing with some family problems. And it read real. My 6th grade (almost 7th grade) boys could related to the characters and it felt like it could have been someone they knew.

Okay, so why I have I spent so much of this book review talking about a different book? Because when I sat down to read Solo by Kwame Alexander, I was hoping for the same type of thing, but about music instead of basketball. In fact I was more excited because I personally love stories about music. However, this book just didn't live up to that. Maybe it's my fault comparing it to The Crossover, but I just didn't find the verse as compelling, the story as interesting, or the characters as relatable.

The author still keeps the book in verse, but it isn't as stylized as The Crossover. It also is very dialogue heavy which I felt doesn't need verse then. In fact, this book may have been better written in prose. The plot isn't bad -- a boy with a love of music, Blade, is born in a rock star family can't wait to get out if and go off to college. His drug and alcohol addicted father makes mistakes at every turn, even to the point where his girlfriend's father is so fed up and forbids the girlfriend from seeing Blade. Without spoiling too much, halfway through the novel Blade receives some information and ends up spending the other half of the novel in Africa. Originally presented to me as a love story, this is actually more of a "finding yourself" story. However, I just don't think Blade is as relatable to people as Josh and Jordan from The Crossover. Solo is probably fine when compare to itself, but unfortunately, I can't help comparing it to The Crossover, which in my heart will win every time.

First Week of School

As tough as it was to wake up in the mornings and drag myself out of bed, these first two days have gotten me so excited for the school year! We had lots of fun doing challenges and brain teasers. Unfortunately, I never think to take photos until I want to brag about my classes to someone else. Oh well, maybe next week.

I'm excited for the 2017-2018 school year!!

Summer Update

Wow.... I did not do a great job of updating this blog like I promised. I cannot believe the last post was in March! I'm hoping to be much better next year! In fact, I have a lot of technology related goals for next yet.

Let me post some photos from my phone in an attempt to sum up whatever I documented of the last 3 months of school.

The Pageturners had a day where we created forts to read in. Who would have guessed middle school students would take fort making so seriously!

Here's two photos of my 6th graders doing one of my favorite investigations/challenges. We do this lesson during the geometry unit. One of the 6th grade standards is to be able to find the area of composite figures by breaking them into triangles, rectangles, parallelograms, etc. After practicing a few days, they're ready for a challenge. We discuss oil spills, how the occur, the consequences, etc. I even show them videos. This year was extra interesting because the students really took the information to heart -- especially when they saw the affected animals. I explain that it can be hard to determine how many sq mi an oil spill takes. We can use an aerial shot to help us estimate.  So their job is to take an aerial outline of an oil spill, break it up into shapes of which they know how to find area, measure the dimensions, convert the inches to minutes using the scale, find the area of the shape, and eventually of the whole oil spill! It's a challenge, but it's worthwhile and they enjoyed seeing if they could get close to the actual size!

  

If photos had sounds, you would be able to hear 6th graders screaming my name from the Statue of Liberty. Someone always has to stay behind with the bookbags when we visit the Statue. This year I was the volunteer, but I didn't expect to hear some students screaming my name and waiving after climbing it. Always a great feeling!

"Merchantville is full of Stars" was our theme for Teacher Appreciation Week. I got pretty excited when I saw my name by the red carpet. Our PTA is definitely one of the best!

Another graduation in the books. So sad to see this year's class go. I will certainly miss them!!

Challenging Geometry Problem

Here's an enrichment activity for my 6th graders:
(Please get the information sheets from me when you're ready)

All credits go to Dan Meyers for this videos

The Girl Scout Cookie Problem:

Room 204 Happenings

Here are some happenings this week....

Algebra 1

I've been slowly acquiring graphing calculators for my students. We've been trying to use online versions, but my students struggled with seeing the buttons and commands. I didn't want them at a disadvantage for high school so I've been trying to get my hands on a bunch of used calculators. This week I revealed that I have managed to get a hold of 15 TI-83 calculators for them to use! The look on their faces made all those hours on Ebay worth it. We used them for the first time today to check out work when factoring quadratics to solve. It was amazing how much more proficient they were with the calculators in their hands rather than trying to use the online versions. I can't wait to find more ways to apply them to our class!

6th Grade Math

  

In preparation for our test next week, my students played a math version of Chutes and Ladders. Our classroom got pretty noisy and competitive today -- but it was all math noise. I try whenever possible to bring fun and games into our day.

7th Grade

Yes those are students throwing paper at each other. And yes, they have permission. To review a concept, we played "snowball". I have scraps of papers with problems on them that we crumble up into balls. Then my students have a snowball fight by throwing them at each other until the time goes off. When it goes off, they pick up a ball and solve one part of the problem. Then we have another fight until the timer, and then they get another snowball and solve step 2 of that one. It's crazy.... but they enjoy it and get practice out of it. Again, whatever it takes to make students enjoy coming to math class!

Another thing happening this week: MARCH MADNESS! I love doing the March Book Madness bracket. This year is an all time first. Since I don't teach language arts anymore I decided to do something different. Instead of just my class voting, it's now open to all junior high classes! Every Friday, every language arts class will vote on which books advance. Stick around to find out what the Sweet 16 bracket looks like!!

Love is in the Air

With Valentine's Day this past week, math class found some ways to celebrate ;)

First my Algebra students, who have been practicing graphing using Desmos.com got a surprise warm up.

They thought it was pretty corny. But they know to expect corny with me.

My 6th graders practice combining like terms and using the distributive property. They got to do a coloring page based on answering math problems. The page had lots of hearts, but unfortunately I don't have photos of that one.

 My 7th graders went Speed Dating.

Yes, Speed Dating. They love/hate that I call this activity speed dating. The idea behind the activity is that each student gets assigned one problem. They make sure they know the answer to the problem and exactly how to solve it. In essence, they become the "expert" of that problem. The students rotate around the room going on a "date" with a person. You trade "expert problems" with the other person. They solve yours, you solve theirs. If the person gets the wrong answer or doesn't know what to do, you get to help because you are the expert. Until the buzzer goes off and it's time to date someone else. They find it very amusing yet awkward. Here are two shots of a speed date.