Friday, April 28th

We started the class with my usual, "Post It's"!

 Students are still struggling the most with rates, ratios and proportions.

 We moved on to finding the rules and changing the our words.  No longer the multiplier, it is now the Rate of Change and no longer the constant, it is now initial value!

 A glimpse of my classroom for Monday!!!  Spiraling each of the concepts each day!

Thursday, April 28th

Students completed an assignment on calculating the multiplier and the constant.

Wednesday, April 26

We started Wednesday the exact same way with my post it notes.

Students are struggling with Geometry so I did an activity to try and solidify their understanding on the topic.  It helped a lot of students to realize that these angles are actually the same.

We then moved on to determining the rules.  I re-did the sheets so that the table of values were in sequential order.  I reflected and thought EQAO doesn't test on a table out of order.  I think it helped students to determine the multiplier and constant with ease.

Tuesday, April 25

I started class with the typical post it notes to help keep each concept fresh!
However, I am now going to designate a concept per day of the week ie. Monday: will be Pythagorean Theorem, Tuesdays; Solve this, etc, etc.

I had students reflect on the concepts that they feel that they are still struggling with in the course.  I compiled a list and will incorporate more lessons on these topics.

I moved on to guessing the rule and the idea of a composite rule with a multiplier and a constant.

Monday, April 24th

Students were at a buy out for the Wizard of Oz performance.

I had two students and they worked on catching up.

The best part was that they asked me if we could do some "post it" questions!

Oh!  They make me so happy!!!

Friday, April 21st

 I started today with reviewing concepts throughout the course.  We are sticking to this process!!  They are liking the review and have told me that they are feeling like they need to go over geometry again!

 Then, we moved on to patterns to algebra!  They were so awesome and fast at this!!!! They said that they have been doing it throughout elementary school!  They were pros!!

 They developed their own rules!  Then, they walked around with whiteboards and guessed the rule that their classmates have put together for them!

Thursday, April 20th

Today, I got myself into a STICKY SITUATION!  We used a lot of chart paper and sticky notes to review the concepts over the past couple of weeks.  We solved 2 step equations, equations involving distributive property, Pythagorean theorem, Ratios, and Geometry.  Then, we finished connecting Algebra and Perimeter.  Students seem to understand the concepts much better this week.  I keep reminding them that these concepts are not going away and to keep trying and working along with it.  We ended the period with a sticky Exit Card in which they solved the problem on the smartboard and put their solution on how they were feeling about the lesson. 

 Exit Card Question:

 How my class is feeling about the concept.  I'll have you know that my 2 "kind of" responses really need to work on their confidence because they were sooooooo close!

Wednesday, April 19

Today, we started class with a "Prove this is a Right Angle Triangle",

followed by a "Post it To Prove It!"

And, finally I gave them a new Solve this!  Students tried really hard to solve this one.  After I walked around and knew that the majority had figured out the orange portion, I then put up the orange piece to help my struggling problem solvers.

Next, I had them solve an equation in groups of 3.  Each student was responsible for one line of the solving process.  They past the equation to the left when they were done their line.  They had the option to correct the line above or continue the process.  Once they had a value for x, they had to use a check to solve.  I learned valuable input into why a student thought their solution was wrong.  They thought their Check had to equal the same answer as the value of x.  Which it only has to balance the equation.  I think this may be the missing piece to my puzzle about why students do not like to check their answer when solving equations.  Another teachable moment for next year :)

Then, once I was confident that they were solving the equations with ease.  I threw in another element!  I had them calculate the value of a side length when we know the perimeter.  Students were apprehensive at first but once we broke it down, step by step, and by colour they were much happier.

Students completed an exit card and had a couple questions to practice for homework, which will become their entrance card tomorrow.