Game Based Learning

During a webinar from http://home.edweb.net/ , one of the other participants told me about a game-based platform that I can use in my classroom for quizzes, surveys and discussions. I started to test it out today and am getting excited about how I can use the website https://getkahoot.com/.

Here are two ideas so far:

1) When I create a pretest for a unit, I can have the students answer the questions on their worksheets first. Then, they can complete the Kahoot quiz as a group. I can formatively assess and check their answers all at once, rather than individually, saving me time! Plus, they will have fun because it is a game.

2) I can set up a Kahoot quiz for a math station. Students who have completed a portion of the learning program I have set up, can sit in a small group and complete a Kahoot. Then I can check in with their progress and discuss any questions they might have.

I am looking forward to exploring this website even more!

Thanks to Richard Byrne @rmbyrne 

See his blog on this teaching tool at:

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/11/kahoot-create-quizzes-and-surveys-your.html#.U9g65vldWSo

Trying to Be Amazing! :)

Motivate the Middle Schooler

I like to reward students because it gets them to participate and puts energy into the room. In the past, it would have been fun, and definitely motivating, to throw little “fun size” candies out to the students during a class discussion. Students perk up and all hands get raised after that first one is thrown to a student.

Unfortunately, in this age of being allergy aware and more health conscious, candy seems to me to be off-limits.

So as I was cleaning out my home desk today, I came across these fun paperclips that I had bought for myself to perk up my paperwork. 

And then I had a light-bulb moment....why not give these out in those class discussions! Students are always asking me for supplies in class!

They can be tossed out to students when peppering them with questions for a review or when trying to get them to share their reasoning and strategy for solving a problem.

I am off to find out what other cute, fun and cheap office/school supplies I can find – like erasers!

Be Amazing!

Having a GROWTH Mindset

instead of a FIXED Mindset

I just read this AMAZING post by a student and have to share it.

I am going to have my students read and respond to this at the beginning of the year!

http://andreahurtado.weebly.com/blog/the-mindset-of-a-r-e-a-l-champion

Be Amazing!!

Absolute Value and the Coordinate Plane

Every summer I like to analyze how I taught the concepts over the past year. This year we implemented a new curriculum, as well, as the Common Core State Standards. It was a lot of work but I love the challenge that change brings!

I have been reviewing how I have taught absolute value to my 7^th graders last year and I wanted to find more ways that my students could apply absolute value. I scoured worksheets, my textbook, other textbooks and the Internet on my search.

As I was looking, I got the idea from a high school geometry book to have students work on the coordinate plane, versus just a horizontal number line or a vertical number line.  In this activity that I created, students use colored pencils for fun and, also, because I believe color stimulates their brains more!

In this activity, students will graph 6 colored lines. For each line, they will write two different absolute value expressions and simplify to determine the distance between the endpoints of each line. There is also a writing activity because students need to practice expressing their mathematical reasoning and procedures in writing clearly.

I think my students will enjoy this activity and it will really help them gain a deeper understanding of how absolute value is useful for finding distance when working with integers. I also believe it is a great foundational activity for future concepts, particularly using the slope formula and the distance formula.

Click any picture above for a link to my TPT store.