Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Day 83: Composite Figures Study Guide & Quiz

6th Grade Math Standards: 6.G.1 Find the area of right triangles, other triangles, special quadrilaterals, and polygons by composing into rectangles or decomposing into triangles and other shapes; apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.
MA.1.a.Use the relationships among radius, diameter, and center of a circle to find its circumference and area.
MA.1.b. Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving the measurements of circles.

The Learning Objective: Find the area of a composite figure

Quote of the Day“I’ve noticed an interesting thing. When some star players are interviewed after a game, they say we. They are part of the team and think of themselves that way. When others are interviewed, they say say I and they refer to their teammates as something apart from themselves - as people who are privileged to participate in their greatness.” - Carol Dweck

Question from Yesterday (as always from a student): Is it ok to find the area of a square and then multiply that by 5 if they are all the same size?

Assessment: The composite figures quiz. I saw lots of common mistakes such as not dividing by two or not being to find the correct base and height of a figure.

Agenda:

  1. Composite figures study guide #1 & #4
  2. Quote, Star Student, Question of the Day
  3. Partner up and do the problems 5, 6, 7, 8 , and 9
  4. Take the quiz (second part of class)
  5. Start and fix the weekly quiz

Glass-Half Full: The way in which the study guide was done was appropriate. We reviewed key concepts from the study guide rather than the whole study guide which would have taken too much of our time.

Regrets: The 6th problem on the study guide required students to multiply 16.5 by 21 and this distracted students from the primary hard part of this problem which was identifying a base and height. It took too long and could have been a difficult problem if the numbers were 3 and 5. I need to go back and change these numbers in the future.

Friday, January 15, 2016

Day 82: Composite Figures Day 2

6th Grade Math Standards: 6.G.1 Find the area of right triangles, other triangles, special quadrilaterals, and polygons by composing into rectangles or decomposing into triangles and other shapes; apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.
MA.1.a.Use the relationships among radius, diameter, and center of a circle to find its circumference and area.
MA.1.b. Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving the measurements of circles.

The Learning Objective: Find the area of a composite figure

Quote of the Day“On your deathbed it is unlikely you will wish:
    You won more games.
    You made more money.
    You had more stuff.
What it usually comes down to are our relationships and personal characteristics.” – Joshua Medcalf

Thought from Yesterday (as always from a student): Does the term square root come from the idea that if the area of a square is 81 feet squared then a side must be 9 feet?

Assessment: Students filled in a self-assessment from the test that was taken two days ago (I was a personal day the previous day). I also used pepper and students at the board to assess work. Finally as the students worked on tonight's homework, I circumvented the room checking for understanding.

Agenda:

  1. Self-Assessment
  2. Collect WQ#13
  3. QSSQ
  4. Review Test
  5. Comp Figures homework review
  6. Comp figures practice

Glass-Half Full: I had a substitute teach the lesson (she is math certified) in order to not miss time in the curriculum. It was nice to come back and deliver day two of the lesson and not have too many hiccups in the process. In going over the sixth part of the agenda I had students cross out number seven and ten, and also had them put a wolf next to numbers three, five, and nine because I anticipate that errors will happen. It was good advanced planning and ensured that students would give sustained mental effort.

Regrets: This lesson can be somewhat dry and the students that are unmotivated and struggle to pay attention anyway can be really lost on this day. I found myself gravitating toward them. If there's way to spice this up, I will look to try that moving forward.

Day 80: Area Test

6th Grade Math Standards: 6.G.1 Find the area of right triangles, other triangles, special quadrilaterals, and polygons by composing into rectangles or decomposing into triangles and other shapes; apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.
MA.1.a.Use the relationships among radius, diameter, and center of a circle to find its circumference and area.
MA.1.b. Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving the measurements of circles.

The Learning Objective: Find the area of triangles and quadrilaterals

Quote of the Day: “Marva Collins said to a boy who was clowning around in class, “You are in sixth grade and your reading score is 1.1 [on par with a first grader]. I don’t hide your scores in a folder. I tell them to you so you know what you have to do. Now your clowning days are over.” – Carol Dweck

Question from Yesterday (as always from a student): In reference to finding the area of a triangle, "How are we supposed to find the area if we don't have two bases?"

Assessment: The test









Agenda:

  1. Copy down homework
  2. QSSQ
  3. Take the test
  4. Weekly Quiz #13
  5. Retakes or read 

Glass-Half Full: I took my prep time to review what weaknesses were greatest for every student in my classes and then made photocopies so they could retake that weakness during the class time if they finished the weekly quiz and test. It only served about 7 students, but I saw growth in these standards with the 7 students.

Regrets: Having students write the formula in order to get credit worked well. The only regret was that one of the bonuses is mathematically impossible to do.


Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Day 79: Study Guide for Area Test

6th Grade Math Standards: Find the area of right triangles, other triangles, special quadrilaterals, and polygons by composing into rectangles or decomposing into triangles and other shapes; apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.
MA.1.a.Use the relationships among radius, diameter, and center of a circle to find its circumference and area.
MA.1.b. Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving the measurements of circles.

The Learning Objective: Find the area of a trapezoid, triangle, rectangle, and parallelogram; find the length given the area of those figures

Quote of the Day“I know most of you can’t spell your name. You don’t know the alphabet, you don’t know how to read, you don’t know homonyms or how to syllabicate. I promise you that you will. None of you has ever failed. School may have failed you. Well, goodbye to failure children. Welcome to success. You will read hard books here and understand what you read. You will write every day...But you must help me to help you. If you don’t give anything, don’t expect anything. Success is not coming to you, you must come to it.” - Marva Collins

Question from Yesterday (as always from a student): Why doesn't a rectangle have two bases? Is a rhombus a parallelogram?

Assessment: Homework checked; weekly quiz checked; study guide done in partners with teachers circumventing the room

Agenda:

  1. Visual Pattern #18
  2. Review the homework
  3. QSSQ
  4. More trapezoid practice (we actually skipped this because the homework demonstrated a large percentage of mastery)
  5. Study Guide 

Glass-Half Full: During my first class, the other math teacher needed to send her class into my room because of a situation. It proved very helfpul that I knew most of their names despite not having them in class. We modified the entire lesson to play a competitive game of pepper. The kids enjoyed it, got educated, and we were able to take care of a situation. It's great to have routines that work in a pinch.

Regrets: I wish that I had given the students a louder promise of push ups for getting the questions in which they have to divide by two correct.

Day 78: Trapezoid Area

6th Grade Math StandardsFind the area of right triangles, other triangles, special quadrilaterals, and polygons by composing into rectangles or decomposing into triangles and other shapes; apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.
MA.1.a.Use the relationships among radius, diameter, and center of a circle to find its circumference and area.
MA.1.b. Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving the measurements of circles.

The Learning Objective: Find the area of a trapezoid.

Quote of the DayMarva Collins taught Chicago children who had been judged and discarded. For many, her classroom was their last stop. One boy had been in and out of thirteen schools in four years. One stabbed children with pencils and had been thrown out of a mental health center. One eight-year-old would remove the blade from the pencil sharpener and cut up his classmates’ coast, hats, gloves, and scarves. One hit another student with a hammer on his first day. These children hadn’t learned much in school, but everyone knew it was their own fault. Everyone except Mrs. Collins. When 60 Minutes did a segment on Collins’s classroom, Morley Safer [the person doing the interview] tried his best to get a child to say he didn’t like the school. ‘It’s so hard here. There’s no recess. There’s no gym. They work you all day. You have only forty minutes for lunch. Why do you like it? It’s just too hard.’ But the student replied, ‘That’s why I like it, because it makes your brain bigger.’ - Carol Dweck

Question from Yesterday (as always from a student): Why is a negative times a negative a positive?

Assessment: Circumventing the room and having student checkers during the notes portion of the class.

Agenda:

  1. Missing sides jumpstart
  2. WQ #12 Passed back and WQ #13 passed out
  3. QSSQ
  4. Trapezoid Intro (don't get trapped)
  5. Trapezoid Notes
  6. Trapezoid HW Practice

Glass-Half Full: The notes took an entire block (five problems), but the pace was plenty appropriate.

Regrets: Not having the experience of doing the order of operations with the students kind of makes this more difficult than it needs to be, but at least when we do order of operations the students will feel very prepared from today's lesson.

Friday, January 8, 2016

Day 77: Triangles, Parallelograms, and Rectangles Combined

6th Grade Math Standards: 6.G.3 Draw polygons in the coordinate plane given coordinates for the vertices; use coordinates to find the length of a side joining points with the same first coordinate or the same second coordinate. Apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.

The Learning Objective: Differentiate the formulas of triangles, rectangles and parallelograms

Quote of the Day“Regarding people that had been in love and been hurt, People with the fixed mindset, their number one goal came through loud and clear: Revenge. ‘If I had to choose between me being happy and him being miserable, I would definitely want him to be miserable. For people with the growth mindset, their stories say it all. My cousin Cathy embodies the growth mindset. Several year ago, after twenty-three years of marriage her husband left her. Then, to add insult to injury, she was in an accident and hurt her leg. There she sat, home alone one Saturday night, when she said to herself, ‘I’m not going to sit here and feel sorry for myself!’ Out she went to a dance (leg and all) where she met her future husband.” – Carol Dweck

Question from Yesterday (as always from a student): "When finding the area of a triangle do we divide the base and the height by two?"
"Would it be ok if we write the two before the unit?"
"What happens when you subtract feet squared by feet?"
"Can you have a negative square root?"

Assessment: I circumvented the room as students worked in partners trying to find the base, height, and formula of triangles, parallelograms, and rectangles.

Agenda:

  1. What doesn't belong? 
  2. Collect the WQ #12
  3. Quote, Star Student, Question
  4. Homework Review & Pepper
  5. Define what shape goes with what formula
  6. More practice with a combination of shapes
  7. Pass out WQ #13 if time allows

Glass-Half Full: I'm asking students more and more to tell me if a base, height, perimeter, and area  is given in feet or feet squared. They are starting to memorize (although not reason) what unit belongs with area and what does not.

The other positive was the fifth part of the agenda. Getting the shape to match the formula and finding the base and height are what I'm teaching currently more than multiplication. It was good to have students skip finding the actual area because it enabled there to be a higher focus and more practice on the essential skills of getting the base and height as well as the appropriate formula.

Regrets: What doesn't belong takes too long as interesting as it is. I needed a shorter warm up today to get to the sixth part of the agenda.

Link of the Day: Andy Stadel made some nice tweaks to the Super Bear 3-Act Math problem from Dan Meyer.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Day 76: Area of Triangles

6th Grade Math Standards: Find the area of right triangles, other triangles, special quadrilaterals, and polygons by composing into rectangles or decomposing into triangles and other shapes; apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.
MA.1.a.Use the relationships among radius, diameter, and center of a circle to find its circumference and area.
MA.1.b. Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving the measurements of circles.

The Learning Objective: Find the area of a triangle

Quote of the Day:
Friend 1: Hey How are ya
Friend 2: Not bad. How are you?
Friend 1: Busy. Seems like I’m always behind. Too much to do, you know?
Friend 2: Oh wow, I know. I’m completely stressed, too. In fact, just last week I had to…

Maybe you’ve overheard or participated in a conversation like this recently. Think about it for a moment. This kind of discussion is predisposed to go one way: spiraling downward. If someone begins a conversation claiming to be “not bad,” “busy,” and “always busy,” how likely is he or she to spend the next few sentences talking about taking on more opportunities, thinking bigger, making his or her best better, or setting new goals? Not very.” – Jason Womack


Question from Yesterday (as always from a student): "Is it possible to find the square root of an odd number?"

Assessment: Weekly Quiz; circumventing the room as students tried to count the squares to find the base and height, fist of five, checking the homework, pepper

Agenda:

  1. Jumpstart using get to 10
  2. Quote & Question
  3. Area of parallelogram recap & pepper
  4. Area of triangle exploration
  5. Area of triangle count the squares
  6. Area of triangle practice
  7. Weekly Quiz #12

Glass-Half Full: Many students were able to derive where the formula came from without being spoon fed the formula. I also implemented the "no formula, no credit" policy. We'll see how much damage it does.

Regrets: I think I need to modify the routine of pepper a little because the six students that are standing during that time are engaged, the students at the board are engaged, but the students at the desks are not. Perhaps I will implement a rule that if you are sitting at a desk, you can add three points to the score if you answer a question right and begin to post pepper records in the classroom.

Link of the Day: There are 440 million students under the age of 16 in Africa and most of them aren't getting a quality education. Power shortages are part of the problem.

Day 75: Area of Parallelograms

6th Grade Math Standards: Find the area of right triangles, other triangles, special quadrilaterals, and polygons by composing into rectangles or decomposing into triangles and other shapes; apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.
MA.1.a.Use the relationships among radius, diameter, and center of a circle to find its circumference and area.
MA.1.b. Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving the measurements of circles.

The Learning Objective: Find the area of a paralellogram.

Quote of the Day“You can make more friends in two months by becoming more interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you.” – Dale Carnegie

Question from Yesterday (as always from a student): Is there something smaller than an atom?

Assessment: Upon starting the homework, I checked off the first three problems and students got to skip the next three problems if they were correct.

Agenda:

  1. Jumpstart asking how to build a rectangular patio with 48 square feet (only whole tiles and each tile is 1 foot by 1 foot).
  2. Quote, Star, Question
  3. Review the area of rectangle homework
  4. Ask class if they have any weekly quiz questions
  5. Parallelogram notes (brief)
  6. Parallelogram practice


Glass-Half Full: I pretended to use the phone to call the height. I told him I was the base and asked if he wanted to hang out. I said I will meet him at the right angle. It was new and different, and therefore slightly more interesting. Hopefully one more student retains it than they would have otherwise.

Regrets: One of the other teachers told her class that the problem is wrong if the students do not write the formula. I wish I had said that today or even yesterday. I will tomorrow.

Link of the Day: Connect 4 for filling out the hundreds chart.

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Day 74: Area of Rectangles

6th Grade Math Standards: 6.G.1 Find the area of right triangles, other triangles, special quadrilaterals, and polygons by composing into rectangles or decomposing into triangles and other shapes; apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.
MA.1.a.Use the relationships among radius, diameter, and center of a circle to find its circumference and area.
MA.1.b. Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving the measurements of circles.

The Learning Objective: Find the area of a rectangle

Quote of the Day“More than 50% of all CEOs of Fortune 500 companies had C or C- averages in college. 65% of all U.S. Senators came from the bottom half of their classes. 75% of U.S. presidents were in the lower half club in school. More than 50% of millionaire entrepreneurs never finished college. Talent isn’t everything.” - John Maxwell

Question from Yesterday (as always from a student): "What is the abbreviation for a light year?" "Is it possible to find the perimeter of a circle?"

Assessment: I did a my favorite no in which students were asked to find the base and height of a square with an area of 144 inches squared. Students also completed homework practice problems independently, stood up when done, and checked others after I had checked them.

Agenda:

  1. Estimation 180 (Days 101 - 104)
  2. Quote, Star Student, Question of the Day
  3. Perimeter Recap
  4. Area Notes
  5. Area my favorite no
  6. Area Practice (Handout A)
  7. Area homework was distributed 

Glass-Half Full: I just have good positive energy right now coming off of vacation. I hope it lasts. One student today said to me, "Slow it down Secreteriat." Which is one of my favorite lines to say to students when they speed up too quickly. It was hysterical.

Regrets: Students know that feet + feet = feet and feet x feet = square feet. They don't really know why. I want to show that in the fastest way possible.

Link of the Day: This from a tweet I just saw:

Monday, January 4, 2016

Day 73: Perimeter Intro

6th Grade Math Standards: 3.MD.8 Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving perimeters of polygons, including finding the perimeter given the side lengths, finding an unknown side length, and exhibiting rectangles with the same perimeter and different areas or with the same area and different perimeters.

The Learning Objective: Find the perimeter of a figure.

Quote of the Day“Forbes magazine reported in January of 2013 that only 8 percent of the resolutions we make are accomplished over one year’s time. People burn out on their goals, or they never get started, or they get discouraged, and regardless of what happens, they quit. If you hope to benefit from a one day contract mentality, you need to make three promises: you will not quit, you will not procrastinate, and you will not allow discouragement to sideline you.”

Question from Yesterday (as always from a student):

Assessment: Circumventing the room as students worked in partners on Toothpick Staircase.

Agenda:

  1. Pepper asking students about winter vacation
  2. Cartoons passed back graded
  3. Visual Pattern # 29
  4. Quote/Question (question was what is the difference between the gcf of 20 and 15 versus the gcf of 20 and 16?)
  5. Perimeter Intro notes
  6. Toothpick Staircase
  7. Perimeter Practice 

Glass-Half Full: Toothpick staircase takes a while to get through. One student recognized a pattern on the second part asking about how many toothpicks are used in staircase #10 using a chart which is not easy to spot (even I did not see it until she explained it). I also was able to use paperclips as toothpicks which worked well for students to draw out the process.

Regrets: In my first class, I dragged out how was your vacation too long anticipating that students would still be asleep from the adjustment coming back to school after 11 days off.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

Day 69 Coordinate Plane Study Guide & Quiz

6th Grade Math Standards: 6.NS.6 Understand a rational number as a point on the number line. Extend number line diagrams and coordinate axes familiar from previous grades to represent points on the line and in the plane with negative number coordinates. a. Recognize opposite signs of numbers as indicating locations on opposite sides of 0 on the number line; recognize that the opposite of the opposite of a number is the number itself, e.g., –(–3) = 3, and that 0 is its own opposite. b. Understand signs of numbers in ordered pairs as indicating locations in quadrants of the coordinate plane; recognize that when two ordered pairs differ only by signs, the locations of the points are related by reflections across one or both axes. c. Find and position integers and other rational numbers on a horizontal or vertical number line diagram; find and position pairs of integers and other rational numbers on a coordinate plane.

6.G.3 Draw polygons in the coordinate plane given coordinates for the vertices; use coordinates to find the length of a side joining points with the same first coordinate or the same second coordinate. Apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.

The Learning Objective: Identify the origins, axes, and quadrants in a coordinate plane; Identify points in a coordinate plane; find the distance between two points of a quadrilateral in a coordinate plane; reflect points across the x or y-axis;

Assessment: The quiz was graded; the study guide was done with a partner with a teacher circumventing the classroom.

Agenda:

  1. Collect all weekly quizzes
  2. Pass out the study guide 
  3. Pass out the quiz (second class)
  4. Have students read or do a math challenge


Glass-Half Full: The quizzes reflected positive gains in learning.

Regrets: This whole unit was kind of dragged out as a result of the vacation falling where it has. Depending on when the school year begins next year, there might be a day or lesson removed.

Link of the Day: Step 2 in the learning walks series. It can be very powerful for everyone as it forces a teacher to teach a class almost like a substitute would teach except that they have been in the class before and have the reputation of being a teacher in the building in the first place.

Day 70 and 71 Cartesian Cartoons

6th Grade Math Standards: 6.NS.6 Understand a rational number as a point on the number line. Extend number line diagrams and coordinate axes familiar from previous grades to represent points on the line and in the plane with negative number coordinates.
a. Recognize opposite signs of numbers as indicating locations on opposite sides of 0 on the number line; recognize that the opposite of the opposite of a number is the number itself, e.g., –(–3) = 3, and that 0 is its own opposite.
b. Understand signs of numbers in ordered pairs as indicating locations in quadrants of the coordinate plane; recognize that when two ordered pairs differ only by signs, the locations of the points are related by reflections across one or both axes.
c. Find and position integers and other rational numbers on a horizontal or vertical number line diagram; find and position pairs of integers and other rational numbers on a coordinate plane.

The Learning Objective: Locate points on a coordinate plane

Assessment: The cartoons were collected and graded for accuracy.

Agenda:

  1. Self-Assessment
  2. Review the quiz on coordinate plane
  3. Review the weekly quiz
  4. Read through the Cartesian Cartoon rubric
  5. Do an example Cartesian Cartoon (modeling) for the class
  6. Students picked what cartoon they wanted
  7. Students completed the cartoon
  8. If students finished early, they could do a second or a third

Glass-Half Full: With three days before vacation, it is often the case that students are off the walls with energy during this time of the year. Today this was a calming activity that still covered the curriculum in the sixth grade. I also had the ability to work with students one on one at the back of the room on this standard or other standards that they happened to be struggling with.

Regrets: I should have made things more interesting and challenging for students that finished early by having them print a picture of their choosing on graph paper and tell how to construct that picture by writing the necessary coordinates.

Link of the Day: Steve Wyborney is breaking down how to step into the classroom into 6 steps. This is the first step. I like how the three teachers come into the classroom together and have a chance to breakdown what happened together. For this to ultimately be successful though it is important that the teacher they are observing is ok with the observation and on board with the fact that everyone, including he or she, is in this to get better not to be judged.

Day 72: Alcott Day

6th Grade Math Standards: N/A

The Learning Objective: Provide value to the life of another; determine an action step that will lead to a positive change in your life

Assessment: I collected the resolutions.

Agenda:

  1. Kid President: Awesome Year
  2. I read a story from Chicken Soup for the Soul about how a class once wrote a scroll for every student in the class. The students held onto the scrolls years later and their teacher only found out about it after attending the funeral of one of her former students. 
  3. We discussed adjectives beyond simply funny and nice. We said we could write stories about students too. 
  4. I passed out scrolls to each student and told them to write their name at the top. 
  5. I assigned each student a person to pass the scroll to. Every minute we switched scrolls so that every student in the class had the opportunity to write on the scroll. 
  6. The scrolls were hung on the lockers for kids in other homerooms to write on if they wanted.
  7. Students came up with an academic and personal resolution which I hung onto so that they could revisit them in June. 
  8. We watched the movie Rio (the students had just finished a South America unit)
  9. We played Scattegories with the following categories: math vocab, countries, verbs, universe terms, book titles, cities, Belmonte faculty, found at the ocean, adjectives, colleges/universities, student names, animals

Glass-Half Full: We got through the last day before the second most anticipated vacation of the school year. Nobody was a problem. The students went to vacation on a very positive note both in terms of the joy that helped spread to others and also the sense of self-worth they got from others.

Regrets: There was not much of an opportunity for students to go and intersperse themselves with other homerooms. Students were also just plugging in one or two word answers to the scroll which made the scrolls less meaningful. I still think overall this was a great way to spend the last day before a vacation.

Link of the Day: Good article on how to find the time and how to use your time most efficiently in seeing other teachers teach.