Bell Ringers 6.0

It's time for my annual bell ringer giant powerpoint update! {See the original, version 2, and version 3, version 4, version 5}

Here are the categories:

Mental Math Monday: 10 middle school mental math problems that I read aloud (no repeats!)

Tough Guess Tuesday: estimation180.com photos that students estimate how many

Which One Doesn't Belong Wednesday: wodb.ca four photos that students can name something unique for each

Throw Back Thursday: practice questions from the Algebra I portion of SAT practice tests and simplifying radicals; I haven't been teaching this soon enough (although in reality it's never needed, it still is for testing) so I'm addressing it through bell ringers because it worked really well for factoring last year

Factoring Friday: 3-4 factoring problems for everyone 9-12 which has made a WORLD of difference for my Algebra II class. The factoring categories are:

• GCF 
• Four Term 
• Four Term with GCF 
• Trinomial a = 1 
• Trinomial a = 1 with GCF 
• Trinomial a > 1
• Trinomial a > 1 with GCF 
• Difference of Two Squares 
• Difference of Two Squares with GCF 
• Mixed (last 6 Friday slides)

Last year I used Google Forms for the second year. After a while, it was a huge struggle to get them to quickly sign in to their chrome books and click answers so I basically went to only using them on Fridays to do the weekly wrap up. I'm considering using Pear Deck this year but not sure if I can deal with the chrome book issue any better.

The font is Forget Me Not. I also made the first slide link to every Monday slide so that you can jump ahead to the correct week of school if needed.

Enjoy:



{Here's a direct link if the widget above doesn't work}

Made 4 Math Monday: Spray Paintalooza

I am a huge fan of INBs (never going back) and one of the things I love are tabs for each chapter.

I've been using a decorated pill box to store the tabs for each period.

This summer I decided I wanted to print, laminate, and cut all of the tabs for every unit for every course ahead of time. (Don't forget to make extras for yourself and those that fall off!) I found these craft organizers at Dollar Tree. The one I went to only had red so I spray painted all of them my signature classroom color. 

The paint is already chipping which makes me sad. And since then I've pink, blue, and white. I color code everything for my courses which means I use blue, green, purple, and pink as you can see from the labels below. I may buy the pink and blue and pray they start making a green and purple! lol

They came with some dividers to cut the spaces in half but I didn't need them so I took them all out.

Even if they get mixed up, they are separated by color. I will take out whatever students are currently using and put them in the pill box. I always forgot to do them in time so it makes my heart happy to have everything ready to go.

Next up, is this file organizer. I originally bought this seven years ago from the Container store for $15.

Over the years I have decided I am tired of green. The problem is, this is actually a magazine holder and it no longer exists. While I can find many file holders and even chevron ones, they are made for folders in landscape orientation which makes them too wide and they usually have 10 pockets when I need exactly seven.

Thankfully @pamjwilson pointed out that I could spray paint it. I asked one of my former students who paints shoes for advice and she recommended this Tulip Color Shot paint from Hobby Lobby.

I mean, they even had my shade! I bought two cans on sale for $6 each. I refused to spend more on paint than on the original holder. So the back is still green and it could use another coat but since I put folders in each pocket anyway, I'm okay with how it turned out. Especially from far away. ;)

I also spray painted two trash cans but I didn't take pictures and I know that's not exciting. But I just need you to know how obsessed I am with matching. So basically, any supplies I find, I just spray paint it to match my room.

Goal Setting and Spreadsheets

I'm feeling really weird that I haven't formally set any goals or resolutions over the last two years. New Year's Day has always been a *secret* favorite holiday of mine. I love beginnings, fresh starts, organizing, listing, etc.

When I was younger I would always write letters to myself and a couple years ago I got really into bullet journaling. In 2016 I accomplished a lot and then it's like I've just been...coasting every since.

But also I feel really happy with myself and my life when before I've always had so many things I wanted to work on.

So of course I had to tweet about it.

Feeling guilty that I haven’t really set any goals in the past two years. Also feeling happy with where I’m at in life and teaching. But feeling guilty that I haven’t tried to improve in any tangible way. But if I force myself to set fake goals aren’t I setting myself up to fail?

— Elissa Miller 🦄 (@misscalcul8) December 28, 2018

I received two helpful responses.

Move to Oklahoma. There are more scholarships available. I have heard that every teacher should set a goal to change 10% of what they do every school year.  10% sounds doable. Set goals that you know will increase student learning & commit to two new lessons a month, that's 10%.

— Cindy Johnson, NBCT (@Johnsonmath) December 28, 2018

This led to:

One of my weak areas is problem solving. I’m thinking open middle problems might be my “two new” a month resolution. Is this a good place to start? https://t.co/xhwHgq6ZWu

— Elissa Miller 🦄 (@misscalcul8) December 31, 2018

Someone also suggested using Illustrative Mathematics so I guess my goal is two new problem solving tasks per month.

The other helpful response was:

I am always inspired by your writing. Great topic. Think it is okay to take a break and hone what you know. AND never okay to STOP getting better. AND I am positive that you tweak and twiddle and make what you say and do a little better every day, because, that is who you are.

— Amy Ellen Zimmer (@zimmerdiamonds) December 28, 2018

That IS who I am. But it feels weird to not have a tangible goal for those daily tweaks.

I do have on tangible goal that I work on every year and that is to use less handouts than the year before. I use handouts for study guides before every test but the rest are basically when I haven't come up with or found a better way to practice. I have a few 'investigations' that I use every year that I like but I'm working on turning handouts into dry erase activities or review games. I label every handout in the footer. 

I can't believe it took me so long to think of this but this year I started tracking handout numbers in a spreadsheet after making several mistakes with my numbering.

And now I just love it so much!

I've been using spreadsheets a lot more this year. I wrote about my planning log back in August. I added this new tab for logging handouts and also the weekly wrap up questions that I ask my students. 

Another new thing I tried this year is using Delta Math. I assign 5 problems from 4 different topics every Monday that is then due the next Monday. I use zero penalty and I give them 10 points a week based on their completion rates. I don't specifically give them time in class to do it but they can work on it when they finish class work early.

Which means....another tab! I started tracking the topics I assign so I can decide when or if it needs to be repeated.

This doesn't really bring me a lot of resolution to the problem of not having resolutions...but I guess I can make a new tab and track the Open Middle or Illustrative Mathematics Problems I choose for the rest of the year.

What do you use spreadsheets for?

Unit Circle Art IV

It's that time of year again for my unit circle projects!

My requirements are that it can't be made out of paper and has to contain radians, degrees, and ordered pairs.

See my previous posts here:  Unit Circle Art I, II, and III.

This is the rubric I used to grade them and they later taped into their INB.

Special Right Triangles: Tic-Tac-Toe Method

I've always taught special right triangle by comparing similar triangles, writing proportions, and cross-multiplying. Last year I tried this investigation for the first time that also doubled as a project with mixed results. I tried it again this year but without the project piece. And I'll be honest, this year I walked around giving some hints and last year I didn't help at all. Why? Because I felt like my class was so needy and had to start learning to be more independent. This year I didn't let them talk until they had finished the whole page front and back. Then I asked them to compare with at least two other people. That part went really well.

Then we went on to basic INB notes. Some students really took the lead in shouting out what to do. While it wasn't cross-multiplying, they were using patterns and it seemed to work.

And then...

Is it weird that y doesn’t equal something with a square root of 3? Since it’s a 30,60,90? Also why does putting it over square root of 3 work? Or is this wrong pic.twitter.com/o1yXYwmXUK

— Elissa Miller 🦄 (@misscalcul8) September 3, 2018

A student asked this question on Friday and I told him I would find out and explain Tuesday.

Which led me to this:

I used these from @MrsNewellsMath last year and my kids grasped it! https://t.co/thop7WWrmR

— Breanna Davis (@MissDavisSCSD) September 3, 2018

I really loved her materials but I had already 'investigated' the patterns and already had INB notes. What to do....

Strips to the rescue!

We made a Math Tools pocket at the beginning of the year and added calculator strips. I turned her charts into strips and we used them to practice with dry erase markers and then write in the answers.


I color coded the 'levels' that Katrina mentioned in her post.

Using the tic-tac-toe method, we decided first which column the given information goes in and then how to solve for x. This really helped them see when we need to multiply and when to divide. Once we had x then we could fill in the other two columns.

Two students figured out shortcuts to the patterns without doing the work. I explained to them that that was my goal but when I led with that in the past, everyone would get confused and so I need to teach a structure that EVERYONE can fall back on.

I felt like this really cleared things up from where we left it on Friday. Next time I teach it I will do the strips right after the investigation and then they can use the strips as a reference for the INB notes.

Thanks Katrina!