First Post of 2016!

Happy New Year or as I like to call it, the almost half-way point of the school year!  There is nothing quite like making it to Winter Break!  As happy as I am with my job, nothing beats being on vacation for 11 days.  I didn't do as much work as I planned, but I have no regrets.  We've been back for three days now, and I must say, they have been quite smooth.  I'm definitely not as stressed as I was last year.  Looking back at my 2015 New Years resolutions, one of them was to "find a new (more fulfilling & balanced) job" and although I was scared to take the leap, I am so glad that ultimately I was brave enough to make a change to try something new.  Here's what's been going on in my classroom in these first few days of 2016...

Happy Teacher Challenge

Someone posted about this 30 Day Happy Teacher Challenge on one of the teacher Facebook groups that I belong to and I think it's a really cute idea, I am gonna try it!  I printed it out today and will hopefully start with day 1 tomorrow.    

Scratch Project

The Programming teacher at my school told me about a Scratch project the 6th graders are going to be starting next week, where they create a calculating machine.  So I shared with him the 6th, 7th, 8th grade, and Algebra 1 reference sheets from the state tests and they are going to use them!  I am so excited for this project.  I cannot wait to see what they come up with!

 

Math Club

After presenting the board games they designed, Shark Tank style, before the Winter Break, the Math Club will be working on a classroom redesign challenge this week and will begin looking into their gold-level project for The National Math Club.  I also would love to do another STEM project with them soon.  I was thinking maybe having them make a balloon car, but I still want to do some research.

Art

My 7th graders in art will be studying Pop artist Romero Britto this week and creating a piece inspired by him.  I also found this awesome teacher art blog to follow with some really great ideas.

CMP3

My 6th graders have been working through the Let's Be Rational unit, which focuses on operations with fractions, which I know some of them needed because the pre-assessment, but some of them are pushing back because they already know the algorithms for working with fractions.  Since this curriculum goes for conceptual knowledge, they have been doing a lot of modeling in class, which for some of them, seems unnecessary.  Today, my ICT class really wanted to discuss mathematical modeling, and I didn't want to disrupt the discussion, so I threw the lesson plan out, and we had a Socratic Seminar on mathematical modeling today instead.  They were begging not to leave when the bell rang.  It just goes to show you that sometimes the best lessons are not even planned!

My 7th graders are finally working on Moving Straight Ahead, which is all about linear relationships and I am loving it!  I am even getting to do some of the slope investigations that I used to leave out in past years.  This is always my favorite unit because I love algebra.  My next steps will be to find some good problems on Mathalicious or Illuminations or Illustrative.  I am having my formal observation with them next Thursday, so I want to make sure we do something good.  It's a great unit to be formally observed on because there is just so much you can do with linear relationships.    

Advisory Service Project

My advisory finally decided on a cause for their service project - homelessness.  I am so excited because not only did they choose it, but I think it gives us a lot of options for projects we can do.  We had been leaning towards homelessness since we read this article earlier this week and then Channel One had a segment on it today, which I think sealed the deal.  They began researching today and I cannot wait to see what they come up with!

Goals/Next Steps/Ideas for Next Time:

• Incorporating more literacy into math class
• The Package design project with my 6th graders and inviting their families in
• Standards-based grading
• Math portfolios
• Field trip ideas - Math Museum

SLCs, CMP3, Schedules, Socratic Seminar (round 2), and I survived teaching Art!

I cannot believe that we are more than a quarter of the way done with the school year!  Last night was  Student-Led Conferences (aka Parent-Teacher Night), Thanksgiving Break is within site, and then the glorious Holiday Break!

SLCs and CMP3

Last night was our first round of Student-Led Conferences.  It was a long night, but they went well.  My advisees did great.  We are going to de-brief as a staff during our Professional Learning time after school on Monday.  There are definitely some changes we can make (in terms of scheduling the conferences, and having the students actually do a task with their parent rather than just presenting on their work).  I even got some really great complements from parents (my favorite was from a parent who said that they had gone to a private school open house with their son a few weeks ago and it turns out they were also using CMP3.  Not only was the teacher they spoke to impressed that we were also using this curriculum, but she was so impressed with how her son was able to talk about the math we have been doing (specifically the Locker Problem.)  She didn't have to stop in and tell me that, but the fact that she took the time out of her night to share that with me and thank me, was just another reminder why I (and all teachers do what we do.)  It also reminded me why I am so happy I am teaching with CMP3 again.  It is by far my favorite math curriculum (another student even said she loved how it wasn't just worksheets and practice, but actually fun).  Definitely no regrets there!  

New Schedules

We started new schedules this week, and at first I was not happy with it.  The reason for the new schedules was so that every class could have at least one double period a week (our periods are only 42 minutes long, which is just not enough time).  I guess I am getting used to them, but when my administration suggested changing the schedule, I would have preferred longer periods overall (like 60 minutes or so), not one day of 84 minutes and three days of 42 minutes.  I also don't like that it wasn't really a collaborative effort by all of us.  I'll give it some time.

Socratic Seminar, Round 2

I am going to be doing another Socratic Seminar next Wednesday!  After some very passionate discussions among my 6th graders about whether zero has an opposite or not, I decided that it would be awesome to do this as a Socratic Seminar!  Not only will this be what I used for my video inter-visitation in two weeks, but I asked my AP if it could be my next informal.  I am so excited!  I found these resources: Socratic Seminar Plan for Full Definition of Zero and Thoughtful Dialogs and Socratic Seminars, which I will be modifying.  I will even be doing it with my 7th graders, because it is such a rich mathematical idea.  I cannot wait! 

Art

My first trimester as an art teacher is coming to an end. This week is our last session together and then the week after Thanksgiving, we will be going to a Music and Drama (the other two art electives) presentation and my visual art students will hang up their three major pieces from the past ten weeks.  For our last session together, we will be studying Keith Haring, and they will be creating a Haring-esq Social Issue poster.  I am looking forward to it.  I am also looking forward to modifying my "curriculum" for the next trimester of visual art, with my 7th graders. Being that this was my first time teaching art (and I had no clue what I was doing) I want to make my curriculum flow better and change some things.  Overall I am really proud with how I did.  It wasn't perfect, but I tried my best, learned a lot, and am optimistic about the future.  Last week was also my first time leading a field trip at my new school.  We went to see the Canstruction Exhibit in Manhattan.  It was tiring, but I think everyone had a good time.  I am glad I got to go back again this year.  

So next week at this time, we will officially be on Thanksgiving Break!  I still cannot believe how fast this year is going.  It seems like just yesterday I was going to an info session about job openings at this school.  I remember how nervous I felt submitting my resume, while at a Starbucks (probably on a Wednesday night) and getting a call back for a demo lesson.  I was so nervous then - was I doing the right thing? Was I being crazy for taking a risk?  But here I am, loving what I do (even though it is not always easy) and happy with the choices I have made that have led me down this path.  I am a math (and art) teacher <3 

Unit Tests, Performance Tasks, Field Trips, BBs & Halloween... oh my!

Before I even start this entry, there is something I must say...

I am all caught up on my (paper-based) grading!  

I know that only fellow teachers can actually appreciate those few, ever-so-brief, few-and-far-between moments where you are actually all caught up on your grading <3  So yeah, I am doing my happy dance.   Here are some of the goings on in my math & art teacher life...

Unit Assessments:

Work has been busy, but good busy.  Not the overwhelming kind, the happily productive kind.  My 6th graders took their Prime Time unit assessment last week and they did OK.  Not great, but OK.  I made my first review video of the year, and I am letting them do test corrections.  I think moving forward, I would like to include at least one quiz before the next unit assessment, to gauge formal understanding more.  The problem with that is our periods are so short (42 minutes only) and I hate taking away from our already limited class time.  My AP has mentioned that we might be changing the schedule to have longer periods (it is a school-wide concern), which would be fantastic, but for now I have to make do with what we have.

My 7th graders are taking their unit assessment tomorrow, so we'll see how they do.  The next suggested unit is supposed to be Stretching & Shrinking, but I may just skip that one and go right into Comparing & Scaling, with maybe some Stretching & Shrinking problems thrown in.  I am going just based on prior experience, but I need to go back to the standards and baseline and make my final decision.

Performance Tasks:

Something I did last year was use released state-test constructed response questions as standard performance tasks.  I held onto these pieces for student portfolios and used them as formal pieces of student work.  I used to think of these pieces as "meeting the standard" but this year my thinking is more that these are the bare minimum to demonstrate mastery of the CCLS.  I have all the 6th, 7th, and 7th grade released state test questions organized by standard, but not Algebra 1 yet, so I think my next step is to find some high school-level performance tasks and incorporate them into my rotation.

Field Trips:

I scheduled my first field trip!  I am super excited to be taking my 6th grade art class to the Canstruction Exhibit in Manhattan next month!  It ties in really well with my Pop Art unit and it's for a great cause.  Typically my school doesn't do Friday field trips, but since art is on a Friday, I was able to make it happen.  I feel really organized and my kids were excited when I told them about it last week.  On a personal note, it's just nice being excited about things like field trips again because last year, I just wasn't.

BBs:

Ahh yes, one of my least favorite parts about teaching - having to update the BB, which is weird, because I love scrapbooking and stuff like that.  Our first official BBs are due by the end of day tomorrow and I am looking forward to putting up my 7th graders Dealing Down reports (our BB theme this time around is "inquiry").

Halloween:

So even though we don't have school on Halloween, I have found some cute Halloween-themed explorations for my math club on Friday (Halloween Logic Puzzle, Witches Potion, Halloween Algebra Puzzles, and of course problems from Math Counts) and a great Pop Art Halloween themed activity for my art class, in addition to finishing up their Pop Art Candy Wrapper piece.  When one of my 7th graders saw the candy corn catapults that my math club made last week, he even said he wished he had signed up for math club instead, which was pretty cool.  I am grateful that I get to teach these two electives because they give me such freedom to try out different things and they allow me the time to explore different projects with my kids.  

Advisory:

I love celebrating random holidays with my advisory every day.  I highly recommend National Day Calendar, because it's both fun and educational.

I survived the first full week of school, and I got a cold to prove it!

It wasn't a bad cold, more annoying than anything, but yes, the school year is *now* officially official.  A couple things to share about this past week:

* I painted with my art class for the first time last Friday.  It was messy, but I survived.  It was a two-week project, so we will be finishing it up this Friday (luckily only a couple of them need to actually finish painting).  They are coming out so good.  I really am so impressed.  Even more than the actual works, we had a great discussion before we started painting, using the elements of art.  This week they'll also be doing a formal pop art critique, so I am pretty excited with how are is going.  After this week, there are only six more sessions before we switch classes.  I am really enjoying teaching art.

* Speaking of electives, my Math Club this week will be exploring an engineering project on building towers, which I am super excited about!

* This week we finally got our grading system, Jupiter Ed, up and running, and I have at least two pieces of graded work in for all of my classes!  (yay me!)  I have never used this system before, but after a short PD on it from our literacy teacher (who is all about blended learning) and I am really impressed with it, specially with the potential for standards-based grading and parent communication aspect.   

* This week I had my first informal baseline observation.  My principal and AP came into my last period ICT class yesterday, and it went well.  My students were exploring when finding the common factors of numbers might be useful.  I was happy with how the lesson went, and the feedback I got today from my principal was positive and helpful.  Moving forward, I am going to work more on class discourse and discussions, which lead me to my next topic...

* I am trying my first socratic seminar ever this Friday!  I have always wanted to do a socratic seminar in math, especially since my social studies colleague last year was amazing at it, so after talking it over with my co-teacher today, and seeing how this Friday's lesson was kinda bland, we decided to try it this week.  The 6th graders have been doing them in their literature class, so they are familiar with the expectations, and I am excited about it.  My big concern (besides having never done one before) is that the questions my 6th graders will be discussing aren't really big, philosophical, open ended questions, but rather they will be exploring different approaches to finding the least common multiple and greatest common factors.  I am really excited to try something new that I have never tried before and always wanted to.  I will be sure to share the outcome next time.  

* Something that has been on my mind, especially this past week as we continue to move through the first unit on integers and rational numbers, is challenging my 7th graders.  Our first unit is on working with integers and rational numbers, which most of them already know how to do, being G&T.  They will do any work I assign in class, but the investigations we have been working on are all about understanding conceptually how integers work, and I am finding that, again most of them, already know this.  Today I even suggested playing the Stock Market Game, and about 10 of them said they had already done it in 5th grade.  So moving forward, finding challenging and meaningful math for them to explore will be a much bigger focus of mine, because CMP3 might be too easy for them.  

  

*Lastly, and this is a silly update, yesterday my boyfriend found this article on how much it would cost to build the Death Star, so of course the first person I thought of was my advisee who is obsessed with Star Wars, and I couldn't wait to share it with him this morning.  He was so excited, it might have been my favorite moment of the day.

So that's where I am.  Learning, trying new things, and nerd-ing it out, as usual.  I am pretty lucky to get to do what I do for a living <3

The First Six Weeks of School, Electives, & Advisory

Week 1 of the new school year is in the books, and what a year it is shaping up to be!  I know we are still in the honeymoon phase, but if the next 39 weeks are half as stress-free and fun as this, then I will be a very happy teacher come June.

Our kids found out their advisory classes today and this afternoon we had our individual first advisory periods, and I am proud to say that after three days of school, I knew all my advisee's names, which checks off the first goal from my "The First Six Weeks of School" list.  I am happy about that, and next week when we formally start to have classes, I hope to fully accomplish the other six goals.  September is so broken up this year, we only had three days this week, and the next two weeks.  Believe me, I am not complaining, but it does make planning and pacing a little challenging.

I am also happy to report that I have decided on my Visual Art elective!  At my colleagues suggestion, I have decided to go with Pop Art as my unit, partly because it's something I want to learn more about and I think it'll be fun.  (FYI my other Friday elective is Math Club, which I am super excited about).

As for Advisory today, I had my kids start working on their coat of arms (an activity that I brought over from my old school) and it was really great to see it coming together.  Earlier in the day, before we split up into advisories, my co-teacher and I had them create their own individual coat-of-arms and I was just so impressed with what they were coming up with.  It's going to be a great year!