Activities to Encourage Collaboration #1: Surface Area and Volume of a Sand Castle!

In a time and society where students spend more time communication through text messages, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and 14 other social media platforms that I cannot even begin to name, I find an ever increasing need to get my students talking to each other fact to face.  As a result I have been on a quest this year to implement as many collaborative activities as I can.   I have used many of them throughout this school year and have had some amazing results that include increased communication, retention of information, assessments grades and more positive attitudes (overall)!   Throughout the summer I will be sharing some of my favorites, some of my other favorite math teacher-authors and many others so that hopefully they can become your favorites too!

Today I am excited to share with you my Surface Area and Volume of a Sand Castle activity!  As we were finishing our three-dimensional figures unit in Geometry I was looking for a really good way to a) get the students talking and b) show them how the different figures can share dimensions to build the structures that we see on a daily basis.  Since I do not possess architectural skills and summer is upon us I decided to build a Sand Castle (as "Do You Want To Build A Snowman" is running through my head).  I started with a goal of including as
many of the main solids that I could and managed to include prisms, cylinders, cones, pyramids and even a hemisphere!  I worked to have the solids share bases, sides and dimensions whenever possible.  This is what I came up with!            
I also came up with a second version that has the figure divided into 11 smaller figures to help struggling students visualize a path to follow to solve it.  Additionally, this helps students to organize their work so that you and they can identify an error if they make one.  (I did not, however, hand this out to begin with as I wanted to see what they would do with it first!)


Before implementing this as partner/group collaboration piece I sat down and created a list of questions that I could ask as I walked around the room to point students in the right direction, get them thinking, communicating and solving without actually giving them the answer.  Some of the questions that I came up with:

1)  Are there any surfaces that aren't exposed?  Alternatively - are there any surfaces that shouldn't be used in surface area?

2)  Have you thought about breaking any of the larger figures into smaller ones?

3)  How are you arranging your work so that you can go back and check it later?

4)  Are there any dimensions that you don't have?  How can you find them?

5)  Do the unused surfaces from the surface area get used for volume?

FREE!!!! 

Finally the day arrived to implement this and I must say, it went AMAZINGLY!  After my students got over the expected moans and groans and sat down to start working on it, they had fun with it.  I heard great discussion, collaboration and genuinely helping each other understand instead of just giving each other the answer.  I set forth the "rule" that their final answers had to be within ten of mine (to account for rounding error) and that whoever was the closest won a prize (extra credit, candy, excusing of an assignment, ect.).  My students quickly turned it into a competition and worked hard to earn the prize.  I ended up with multiple students hitting my answer down to almost the decimal point - which is great! :)  Based on the feedback I can honestly say that they enjoyed it and felt that it really reinforced the concepts we have been learning in this unit!  

I have put the entire activity, including a multi-page answer key that highlights each piece and how to find their surface area and volume up in my teacherspayteachers store.  You can pick it for FREE here :)  I would LOVE to hear how you use it and implement it! Please comment below!

Celebrate Spring and Customer Appreciation

Spring is my favorite season.  It is time of renewal, regrowth and new adventures!  Unfortunately for me and many teachers I know, it is also the start of the stress of state/national test season. :(  In this time of high stress I want to help you all out and to say thank you for your continued support of my TpT store!  I have chosen five of my products that are in high demand at this time of year and am going to offer one per day throughout this week at an additional 25% off!  Additionally, I am running a rafflecopter that will start on Monday, 4/4 and run through midnight on Friday 4/8 of my geometry riddle worksheets bundle and my algebra riddle worksheets bundle!

On Monday (4/4) my Graphic Organizers Entire Year Bundle will be an extra 25% off of the already money saving bundle price!  These Graphic Organizers are great for helping students review for finals as you finish out the year as well as useful through the year as you teach your Geometry Units! 

On Tuesday (4/5) my 2nd Semester Geometry Bellwork Bundle will be an extra 25% off of the already money saving bundle price!  My bellwork are not only great for getting classes started, but also work well as station cards and exit tickets!

On Wednesday (4/6) my 2nd Semester Geometry Word Wall Cards/Posters will be an extra 25% off of the already money saving bundle price!  This posters not only look beautiful on your walls but helps students reinforce their Geometry vocabulary and stimulate mathematical discussions!  

On Thursday (4/7) my  (Geometry) Circles Complete Unit Bundle will be an extra 25% off of the already money saving bundle price!  This bundle includes notes, bellwork, practice worksheets, review, graphic organizers and more!  

On Friday (4/8) my  2nd Semester Complete Curriculum Bundle will be extra 25% off of the already money saving bundle price!  This bundle includes 5 units that are most often taught during the second semester - Right Triangles, Quadrilaterals, Circles, Area and Three-Dimensional figures!

Don't forget throughout the entire week to enter into my rafflecopter Double Riddle Worksheet Bundle Giveaway - both my Geometry Riddles Bundle and my Algebra Riddles Bundle!

I hope that these savings will help you out as you plan out the finish to your year!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Avoiding the Pitfalls of Teaching 3 - Creating Your Own Materials and TeachersPayTeachers

      As I have progressed through my years of teaching (currently sitting at 15+ !) I have learned a great deal.  One of the things that I learned was to not follow the textbook as if it was the end-all-be-
all guide to teaching.  I learned to break away and follow my own sequencing (see pitfall 2 here).  Doing so, however, left me with a problem.  If I was creating my own sequencing and my own lessons then I didn't always have an assignment ready to go.  The work and worksheets that come with the book are designed to follow their sequencing, not mine.  So an epic quest started to find materials that were on a single topic (or similarly related topics) that I could use to give my student practice.

       I began by printing out the textbooks worksheets and using the good old cut it apart and tape parts back together to create a new worksheet.  For a while, this worked.  Eventually, however, I moved further away from the book and started creating my own examples because they better fit what I was trying to teach.  I did this because I often felt that the book was asking them to solve a math problem while jumping rope and singing the alphabet in their over complicated examples.  So my quest continued and led me to start buying worksheet books from the publishing companies and again, for a while this worked.  It solved my problem far better than the cut and paste method did.  Until suddenly I found myself frustrated again with the holes.  I kept thinking there had to be a better way and I started searching online and I found my first TeachersPayTeachers resource.  It matched exactly what I need and it was beautifully made.  I seriously had one of those "heavens opening, beam of light moments".  I'm not kidding, I spent hours on the website searching, bookmarking and loading my cart.  It was like Christmas in September.  I was incredibly happy...until I got switched from Algebra to Geometry and everything I had found and bought was for Algebra.  So back onto TpT I went and discovered that the Geometry resources were a lot more scarce than the Algebra ones...

        By that point, however, I had taught enough years that I was getting really good at creating my own stuff so I used what I learned and started creating high quality Geometry resources that matched the caliber of the Algebra that I had purchased.  One day I decided to share what I was making with other teachers and the  Secondary Math Shop was born. :)   Since I opened a store on there, the caliber of my lessons, activities, diagrams and classroom environment has skyrocketed. I not only make things that are so much more superior to what I used before, but I purchase so many things as well to supplement my lessons!  That's right, while I am a seller, I am also still an avid buyer! :)

I spoke with a few other teacher - authors about their journey to opening their own stores and here is what they had to say.

Apples and Bananas shared "Since we work in an alternative school setting, we found it necessary to create materials that would appropriately scaffold content for a variety of learners. When we realized that the curriculum we were given only reached a handful of our students, we decided to try our hand at creating scaffolded notes and interactive notebook activities, like the products in this Algebra bundle.  We saw that our students were retaining so much more information with this format, and we love that it is general enough to be used with any curriculum."

Nikki from Teaching Autism stated "I started to make my own resources when I realised that there wasn't anything out there that suited the 'class' as a whole. I decided I would have to make it myself! You see, we are very big on inclusion - when our topic is 3 little pigs, we ensure ALL our children, regardless of ability take part in the same 3 little pigs activities, BUT we differentiate them so they are working at the right level for them with just the right amount of challenge. So, I started making my own resources, I had always been good at ICT so thought it would be easy - it's not so easy, trust me, wow I don't know how some of these teachers do it! At first I was using publisher, slowly I got around to powerpoint, then I got brave and started using my macbook instead of my usual windows laptop, investing in clipart that I just KNEW my students would love. The more enthusiasm I put into my resources - the more the children LOVED them! I make the same activity in 5 different levels, yep FIVE. It means all our children are working on the EXACT same activity, yet it's just changed to suit their individual abilities and needs!   Every child is different, which, in my class, means they all need different resources suitable for them. "

History Gal shared that "The textbook and the material that come with it make history boring. Raise your hand if you remember being in history class and being told my your teacher to read pages x - x and answer the questions at the end of the chapter. Who gets excited about doing that? I want students to get excited about history so I created my own activities. My favorites are my historical simulations"

It's Kinder Time I purchased Morning Work for my kinder kiddos and found that some of it was too easy for my kids. I also noticed that sometimes the morning work would have standards I had not taught yet and my kiddos would struggle to complete a supposedly review independent activity. This issue pushed my to take the giant leap and create my own Morning work. You can find it here(Morning Work Bundle). I know my kiddos were able to work through this product independently and were reviewing stands that we covered. It also helped that the weekly practice was repetitive and my kiddos knew what skill they would practice.  I am now working on adding the units that I have created for my classroom to tie in some fun activities as well as hitting the academic standards. Really creating came from wanting to have materials that fit the needs of my kiddos and allowed me to support each kiddos at their level."

Mrs. E from Mrs. E Teaches Math explained that  "I taught honors students and had a very difficult time finding activities and other resources rigorous enough for my students. Most of the activities I found online were way too simple for my students. I started creating my own activities to use in my classroom. One of my coworkers saw the activities I was making and suggested I list them on Teachers pay Teachers."

Coach Christopher from Courage To Core shared  "In my view, most textbooks aren’t sufficiently student-centered. They also tend to cover an incredible breadth of material at the expense of depth, and rarely give students the authority to do more than a series of relatively repetitive practice problems. They are certainly useful resources and particularly so for students who can work and learn independently out of the gate, but I think they don’t work so well for students who are not already performing at a high level. By contrast, having students work in small groups engages and challenges students widely regardless of level. Students must collaborate, articulate, listen, be creative, risk failure, deal with failure, persist, organize, assist, be assisted and actively engage as problem-solvers. Really putting my students to work has worked for them."


The pitfalls are there, just waiting, but hopefully together we can navigate them, avoid them or capitalize upon them to the benefit of you and your students.  What do you do to create your own materials or to supplement to make things fit the needs of your students?  Comment below, I'd love to hear it!

Money Saving Tips, part one!

As summer starts I have a list of things that I want to accomplish - including figuring out how sleep past the 5 am that my body got trained to all school year!  One of the biggest issues that teachers have is how to provide for all of their classroom needs on a usually a limited or non-existent classroom budget!   So I thought that throughout the summer I would share some of my favorite money saving tips!

1)  How to maximize card stock and colored paper.  I was in Target recently shopping for card stock to print my newest Bingo Game on.  It features two different types of cards, 30 each of two types.  As I was standing there pricing out card stock I had lightbulb moment!  I realized that if I printed my Bingo Cards with one type of card on each side I would only  need 30 pieces instead of 60.  Big Savings!  Especially if I laminated them afterward to save them for multiple years of use!  

Surface Area and Volume Bingo

2)  Saving on consumable classroom supplies.  I go through glue sticks, colored pencils, erasers and pencils like they are candy throughout the school year!  After a few years of spending almost my entire classroom budget on just these things I needed to find a better solution.  I realized that usually about 2 months before school starts the office supply stores start offering pencil, nickle and quarter sales with each weekly ad.  For example Office Max will have 12 packs of pencils for a penny.  While there is usually a limit per transaction, I will either take my husband with me or go a few times in a week until I get what I need.  Here is sample add from last year so you can see what I mean!  

3)  How to test it out before you laminate it permanently!  Those things that I keep permanently I like to laminate to make them last.  Sometimes, however, I'm not sure if it is going to work the way that I want but I also don't want to print it twice.  My solution?  Page Protectors!  They work great for full page sheets so that you can write on them with dry erase markers and test them out before taking the final step of lamination (or a way to skip it totally!).  If you are think yes, but what about task cards that are smaller...well I found these that work perfectly!  They are for 4x6 recipe cards (they come in 3x5 too) but work great for task cards.  

 I'll be back later this summer with more tips!  I hope you found these useful! :)

Can't Live Without Secondary Math E-Book

The second installment of the Secondary Teacher Collaboration books are here and they look fantastic!  Lindsay Perro has done an amazing job of compiling one - page informational insights into the sellers and one page freebies from over 20 secondary math sellers!  Each informational page tells you a little about the seller, some of their favorite resources and things that they cannot live without!  Each one page freebie is ready to print and use!  You can download the math book here:

Math

I have added my freebie from the book to my store and I have included an answer key as well!  You can download it here:

SMS Freebie!

If you are looking for resources for other topics, there are also books on Science, ELA and the Humanities!  Be sure to check them out!  Happy teaching!

An InLinkz Link-up

Why I Do Vocabulary Assignments and Quizzes

During classroom discussions, my room used to sound a lot like this:

Me:  What do we know about these angles (points at a set of vertical angles)

Students: -----

Me:  What do these two angles share?

Student A:  A point

Me:  Great!  Where is that point located?

Student B:   Where they cross

Me:  What is that point called?

Students:  ------

The "discussion" would go on from there with me asking ever more information loaded questions trying to get the students to the point that the angles were vertical and therefore congruent.  It seriously made me doubt my teaching abilities.  Until the day that a light bulb went off in my head that is.  I realized that their lack of ability to answer my question had less to do with an understanding of the concepts and more to do with the fact that they lacked the language to express themselves mathematically.  I sat down that evening and made a list of all of the vocabulary that was new(er) to that unit.  Terms that they might have heard in passing or ones that I might have used, but not ones that they had ever really practiced.  I came up with almost 40.  I was astonished so I went back through the unit I was teaching and double-checked.  Nope, no mistake, it really was almost 40.  The next day I went into class and gave them five of them to define as bellwork.  The majority were able to give me two.  At that point I felt like I was in an old space movie - you know:  "Houston, we have a problem"...

As any good teacher does, however, I took the problem as a challenge to be tackled, addressed and fixed to benefit my students.  Out of this problem was born a simple solution - vocabulary assignments to launch each unit and periodic vocabulary quizzes through each unit.  

Vocabulary Bundle

Vocabulary Bundle

Each vocabulary assignment contained two parts.  The first part asks students define the term, draw a sketch (if possible) and to give any prior knowledge that they might have.  I stress to students to read the definition given in the glossary, the textbook or online and then to write it in their own words.  We talk about the fact that when they write it in their own words they will better understand it and retain it for future use.  For the prior knowledge portion we talk about maybe hearing it in a prior class, hearing it at home, seeing it in a book or other words a way may be used to help them start to make the connections.  I will admit, at first this is the column that they struggle with the most but as the year goes on, it gets filled in more and more.  The second part of the vocabulary assignment is a set of puzzles.  I include a crossword so that they read the definition and start to make connections to the term and a word search so that they learn to spell the vocabulary terms.  The students not only learn from doing these, but they also seem to enjoy them!  I have even had a few students ask if I could make them a specialized set!  (I have bundled an entire year of these assignments for Geometry here!)

The vocabulary quizzes that we do through the unit vary.  Sometimes they are matching with the definitions in one column and the terms in a second.  I also give them quizzes where there are paragraphs to fill-in with words from a word bank.  The hardest version, and the one that I tend to save until towards the end of the year, are the ones where I just give them the definition and they supply the word without being given a vocabulary list or word bank.  I find that as the year goes on, their scores on the quizzes get better and better.  

Games

Activities

In order to help  my students practice the vocabulary throughout a unit, I will utilize a variety of review and practice techniques.  I have made a few matching activities where the students cut apart pieces and match the term, definition, diagram and label.  I sometimes will do this in stations and just give the students an answer sheet.  Other times, I will literally have them cut and paste everything together.  I also have a created a few vocabulary based BINGO games that we use.  Additionally, we use Kahoot and Socrative to practice as well.  

Wall Posters

Finally, I have also created a set of posters for every unit that we study.  Each poster features a single vocabulary term, a diagram, the definition and any other crucial information or facts to support the definition.  I print the posters on card stock and laminate them so that I have them.  I post the vocabulary for the entire semester along one wall of my room.  It stays up until the new semester starts.  I find that students will take pictures of parts of the wall, especially if they are studying for a test or quiz.  And yes, I even leave them up during an assessment (although I will cover a specific unit during a vocabulary quiz).  By the time we get to an assessment the students know the vocabulary well enough and realistically, I am testing their application of the concepts by that point, not their memorization.

Quick Reference Sheets - A Perfect Fit for Interactive Notebooks and More!

Geometry (and math in general) is full of theorems, diagrams, formulas, calculations and so many more topic specific things to remember that students often suffer from brain overload.  Throughout my years of teaching math at the secondary level I have seen this happen on multiple occasions and when it happens, well the results are just not pretty.  The students begin to get frustrated trying to keep things straight, they act out or

Quick Ref

worse, they give up and shut down.  I am a big proponent of graphic organizers (coming soon in a future blog post!) but depending on the topic they can sometimes get lengthier than I would really like them to become.

Quick Ref

The need for something to help students really came to a head when we started talking about right triangle and trigonometry, specially the special right triangles formulas!  To overcome both the student shutting down and the length issues, I started thinking about how I remember things.  I mean, even though I'm a math teacher, I can't keep everything in my head at all times! :)  I realized that I often create "cheat sheets" for a lack of a better thing to call them.  These sheets usually consist of formulas, sketches and possibly shortcuts depending on what I'm trying to remember.  When I sat down to transfer my cheat sheets to something more students friendly, I ended up with something that was a cross between a graphic organizer and a formula list.

Each one ended up containing diagrams as well as the formulas that corresponded!  I decided that I didn't want to just give them everything thought.  I am a strong believer in the fact that when a student writes things down on their, they remember the information better.  As a result, I ended up creating two versions.

The first version has everything filled in as an answer key and as an accommodation for students with IEP's/504s.  This version also works great to leave at a station for an aide during a station review. 

Freebie!!!

Additionally, I have sent them home to parents to give them an overview of the unit that we are studying as well as putting them in my own unit plans.

The second version has blanks for students to fill in of the important information. 
I found that this works perfect for many things.  If they are printed two to a sheet, students can put them in an interactive notebook.  I have also used them as a review for a quiz or test and as a catch-up tool for absent students.

Bundle

So far I have created six:  Circles, Transformations, Area, Surface Area and Volume, Quadrilaterals and Right Triangles/Trigonometry.  This last one is my newest freebie in my TeachersPayTeachers store!  Please
check it out and let me know what you think. I have also bundle all six of my Quick Reference Sheets in a money-saving bundle!  I have more planned to cover other units of Geometry and eventually I might branch out and make some for algebra! 

New Year, New Resolution to Get Organized

At the beginning of the school year I went through and spent time getting myself organized both as a teacher and in my classroom.  As the year has gone on, however, I have found certain things lacking.  Namely the cohesiveness of the walls, boards, turn-in, pick-up and supply bins.  They are just a mess and it drives me bonkers!  I have tried different ways to overcome this mess including sticker labels, folders and other random methods.  But for me, since it is handwritten, it still looks sloppy.  

As a result, I turned to my favorite teacher store first - Lakeshore Learning - to see if they had anything that would meet me labeling needs!  I found some great little plaques/name tags that I could laminate and write on with dry erase markers.  They are really nice and cohesive looking...but after getting them home and trying them out, I realized that they still didn't look...well professional enough for a high school classroom.  

 

Vintage Digital

So I did what I have done for a while now - I made them myself!  I downloaded some fantastic retro and vintage digital papers from Stacey Lloyd on TeachersPayTeachers and got to work!  I used the papers as a background in PowerPoint, added some frames, did some other coloring, manipulating and modifying and had a template.  I then started thinking about everything I needed to label in my room and created professional looking labels for everything in my room!  I even created labels for my group numbers so I don't need to recreate them every I put students in groups. To make them functional and long lasting I am going to print them on card stock and laminate them.  

Starburst

After a couple of days of staring at them (since I made them over winter break when I was still over a week from getting back in my classroom) I decided that if they would benefit me, then maybe they would benefit other secondary math teachers too!  So I made four more sets with different backgrounds and posted them in my TeachersPayTeachers Store.  I also included a powerpoint file so that teachers can make their own labels and change the phrasing if something that I labeled isn't what they call it!  The labels come in Starburst, Circles, Diamonds (a black and white design for those without color printers), Stripes and Circles and Stars (this prints really well in gray scale if you are color ink challenged!). 

What is your favorite way to get  organized?

***Thank you to Stacey Lloyd for the fantastic background for my blog cover slide***

Riddle Worksheets, Mazes and Coloring Sheets: Making Practice Fun(ny)!

Not everything in life is fun, I get that. Sometimes you just have to push through and get it done, I understand that too. When you are competing, however, in a world of technology, bright colors and immediate gratification you have to get creative to hook your students in. As a result I went on a quest to find ways to get my students to practice the math that I was teaching and make it somewhat "fun" for them too.

My first stop was my own years in school from which I vaguely remembered getting the Pizzazz worksheets. They had this funny little pun or joke that you solved as a reward of sorts by finishing the problems. In my quest, however, I discovered that a) they were out of print and b) the ones that I could find were at a much

Geometry Riddles

Algebra Riddles

lower level than I could really use for a high school geometry class. That idea, however, lit a spark and made me wonder, could I create such a thing? I discovered that the answer was yes I could in fact do so and my Riddle Worksheets were born! Thus far I have created 22 "non-seasonal" worksheets for Geometry (available individually or in a money-saving bundle) as well as multiple versions of the most popular topics with a Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas theme. I have also created ten for Algebra (also available individually or in a money saving bundle) on some of the more popular topics. I have more planned for both areas, when the creativity bug strikes me again! Each worksheet features about 15 problems that required the students to solve the problem, locate their answer in the answer box and then solve the pun. Mystudents usually groan, a lot (!), when they solve the pun but they get excited when I hand them out and enjoy doing them! The practice that students get and the collaboration they do is so rewarding!

4 The Love Of Math

Alas through, teachers cannot live by riddles alone, nor do I really want to! This lead to my second stop, which was a search on TeachersPayTeachers for fun algebra or geometry worksheets and I discovered Mazes! These worksheets are beyond phenomenal! They require students to start by solving a problem and give them two answer solutions. Whichever answer they get, leads them to the next problem to solve. The students repeat this process until they gotten all the way to the end of the maze! I love these for so many
reasons! 1) They are self-checking. If students don't get one of the two answers provided they know that they did something wrong. 2) They identify the most commonly made errors since the "wrong path" is created by making the most common mistakes and leads to great classroom discussion. 3) The students have fun! Students need to realize that math is enjoyable and these mazes help to make that happen. My favorites so far are by:   4 The Love Of Math, Teaching High School Math and All Things Algebra

Mrs. E Teaches Math

Another type of maze that I happened upon are created by Mrs E Teaches Math and are a "get up and move" type of station maze. In these problems the students start by solving a problem. Depending on the answer they get, they move to a specific station. If a student makes a mistake, they are sent back to a station that they already completed and have to back track to figure out where they made their mistake! She has a variety of these mazes as well as chain activities and sum 'em activities. I love everything in her store and she has a great blog too!

All Things Algebra

As I was searching on TPT for fun worksheets I also came upon my third stop which is some great coloring worksheets and honestly, who doesn't love to color??? :) These worksheets ask students to solve a problem and then color in an area a specific color if their answer falls between a certain range of values. These are fantastic for so many reasons! 1) They get students practicing and working out the problems with a goal in mind. 2) Students have to be able to place their answer in a range of values which is great for ordering numbers. 3) Students love to color. They may complain, but they really do love it! Some of my favorites so far are made by: Lindsay Perro, All Things Algebra , Activities by Jill, and 4 The Love Of Math .

I encourage you to check out some of the great resources I've highlighted here and go searching for your own. Not only will your students thank you, but you'll thank yourself too! :)