Hello There...

Wow.

Remember me?!

I cannot believe how quickly this school year has flown by (I mean, the state test starts TOMORROW!).  What's even more shocking is that I have not even posted ONCE!

Between implementing 2 new textbooks, starting interactive notebooking with all 4 of my classes, flipping my algebra class for 10 weeks, finishing my Master's (finally!), and maintaining my original blog (http://cookbookmeals.com), this poor blog was completely neglected.

The good news is that I LOVE my interactive notebooks, as do my students!  I will have lots to post in the near future!  I can't say when that will be, but I promise to share everything I have incorporated this school year with you all.

I hope your school years have been just as great.  Can you believe that the summer is just around the corner?!

First Day Activities

My students come in tomorrow for their first day.  I should be getting ready for bed...not writing a blog post!  I'm very tired after a day of meetings and finishing up my classroom.  But, I wanted to share what I decided to do as a quick opening activity tomorrow.  Each student in my homeroom will have to tell me 1 thing about their self.  What they tell me will depend on what they roll using the dice on my Smartboard.

The large die on the bottom is an interactive one.  Students will come up to the Smartboard, roll the die (by tapping it), and then share something depending on what they rolled.  You can get the Notebook file in my stores: TpT or TN.  It is a short activity, but I only have an hour with my homeroom tomorrow and I have to give out and explain a lot of forms.  I also need to assign lockers in that time.  I found this cute worksheet for them to fill out if we have any free time tomorrow or when I'm collecting all of the forms on Thursday.

I think it's very cute and simple enough.  I like the idea of having them trace their hand on the back and then see if it grew in June.  You can download the worksheet here.

Hope you all have/had a great first day with your students!

Made 4 Math Monday #6

It's the last Made 4 Math Monday of the summer!

 
I'm planning and hoping to keep up with this once school starts...we shall see!  This week's is a simple foldable about the types of slope.

I plan on having students draw a picture of each type of slope onto a small piece of graph paper.  They will glue the correct picture under each flap.  They will also find the actual slope of each line.  You can get this foldable at either of my stores: TpT or TN.

Hope you are all having a great Labor Day!

Math Word Wall

My PDP (Professional Development Plan) requires that I have a Math Word Wall.  When this requirement first came about, I made a word wall using sentence strips.  It took a long time to create and when I sent them to my Processing Center to get laminated, only about 75% of the words made it back to me.  I was mad!

The next year, while shopping in Lakeshore, I came across this:

I decided that it was worth the $20.00 investment and bought them.  While you can use them on the rings as flashcards, I turned the cards into my Word Wall.  I love the colors and how the words are divided into categories.  Yes, some of the words are a little juvenile for my students, and there are some words that I wish were included.  But, for the most part, it covers all the basics and works for me.

I didn't hang up the Math Symbols cards this year because I already have several posters in my room with the symbols on them.  The cards fit perfectly onto a curved wall that I have in my room.  Don't they look great?

School starts Tuesday for me; kids come on Wednesday.  My room is pretty much ready to go!  I'll share final pictures soon!

Made 4 Math Monday #5

It's Made 4 Math Monday again!

After looking through my new Dinah Zike foldables book, I was inspired to make some foldables of my own.  While the CD ROM that comes with the book has lots of templates, there's not much that you can customize.  It uses Adobe Acrobat.  You can only add text to some boxes; others you can only add images.  After creating one foldable for my Algebra I class on all the properties they need to know (there's 10!) I decided to make my own templates in Word.

I started with a 4 section foldable for operations with integers.  I left the inside blank for the students to write the rule for each operation along with an example.  They can color letters on the front.  I also included directions on the section that will be glued into the notebook.  It says where to cut, where to fold, and where to glue.  This will eliminate mistakes (hopefully).

After integers, I used the same template to make a similar foldable for decimals, fractions, and mixed numbers.  I think they will look great printed on colored paper.

You can get any of the foldables (or all 4 in a value pack) in my stores: TpT or TN.

Reddit Gifts

So, a few weeks ago, my husband sent me a link to join Reddit Gifts.  They were hosting a teacher gift exchange.  I didn't know much about it, but signed up anyway.  It asked for basic information and for me to create a wish list.  I made one using amazon.com.

I pretty much forgot about the whole thing until this week.  On Monday night, I got an email saying the exchange had started and I was matched with a giver.  The next day I was notified that the gift was in the mail and was sent a super nice message from my giver:

On Wednesday afternoon, the doorbell rang.  It was the UPS man with a package for me.  This is what was inside:

I was so shocked by the generosity and kindness of a complete stranger.  Everything will be perfect for my interactive notebooks.  This is such a nice program.  If they do it again next year, I will definitely let you all know!

Posters, Posters Everywhere!

I don't know about your students, but from time to time I catch some of mine daydreaming and staring off into space.  I always do my best to refocus them immediately.  However, I'm sure a minute or two may go by before I grab their attention again.  Because of this I am a big believer in hanging LOTS of instructional posters and signs.  This way, when they are staring off into space, they hopefully will notice a colorful sign and read it (and ideally remember it!).  I may go a bit overboard with my posters, but I think it's worth it.  Here's the biggest wall I have:

I also have lots of toppers over my whiteboards.  Here's the right board:

And here's the left one:

I'm not quite finished, but it's definitely getting there!  In the past, I used Fun Tac to hang all my posters.  It was really frustrating though because most of them would start to fall by October.  This year, I got Velcro coins.  So far, so good.  Hopefully they will stay up all year and next year I'll just have to stick them to the Velcro that will already be on the wall.  It will be such a time saver!