I need 3 more months of summer. For realz.

I took off with my  kids to Florida last week for a last-minute vacation. And to escape reality for a few days.

But now I'm back and have a lot of work to do.  (Oh, and we're buying a new house and moving in the next week or so.)

I have a lot of decisions to make; things that used to be natural or "easy" decisions now seem harder. Maybe it's because I haven't had to make them for a couple of years now?

What's big on my mind right now:
1. I'd like to incorporate some of the Mathematics Vision Project's materials in my Math 1 and Math 3 classes. I'm thinking more about the Math 3 at the moment because I have 3 of them and it's going to be harder to make them more inquiry based. I'm tempted to just go straight through the MVP Units but I think I'll try to merge them with the Math 3 book we have available (as a teacher edition).

I started by making a list of the MVP topics and am trying to match them up with topics in my book. I have them in an excel spreadsheet so I can sort them to my heart's content.  I really like that MVP has an "honors" level - I think I'll be able to pull in a bunch of them to my Precalc class, too.

2. How (if) I want to do the requiz option this year. I like it for the Math 1 kids; I think it's really important for them to "get" these topics before moving on to Math 2. This Math 1 class is actually the 2nd half of Math 1, but my plan is to revisit solving equations and graphing lines pretty hard before moving on to anything that relates to the second half of Math 1. I don't know that these kids would take advantage of requizzing but it needs to be an option.

3. Notebooks. I'm not stuck on the idea of using a composition notebook - the smaller size gets annoying. What I'm thinking is that I'll have the kids use a 3-ring binder and looseleaf. That keeps it much more adaptable - we can add things in like an INB but have the flexibility with looseleaf. If that makes sense.  It does in my mind. :)

4. I'm going to use Sam's idea of folders for each table group. Even if I don't get them pre-stuffed with materials every day, it would be a nice easy way to turn in materials and help me keep a little more organized. So now I just have to decide if I want to have one color per period or have a rainbow of colors. I'm thinking one.

And then there's a lot of random little things
  • I need to get new pizza boxes for barriers when the kids take assessments.
  • Do I want to make copies of my pre-made notes for the kids or just post them online? That way some kids can write it all out (if they'd like), some can download and use their computers (we're a BYOD/1:1 mashup), or I can have some copies available in class.
  • I need to buy fans. I'm not sure where mine disappeared to and the school doesn't have a/c.
  • I need to print and laminate my SMP posters.

BTW - it was announced today that next year's Twitter Math Camp will be held July 16 - 19 at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. You should go! Just don't take my spot. :)

Comments

  1. I am considering making videos as I teach my math classes. What do you recommend I use to make the videos?

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  3. Christy, I think it's going to totally depend on what you have available to you. If you have an iPad, Explain Everything is a good one. If you have a laptop (or tablet PC), I'd go with Screencast-o-matic. But there's also the suite of tools from TechSmith.

    I've never done videos of my class... I've just made screencasts.

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