Madmathteacher Blog

What I’m updating, what I’m not…

madmathteacher — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 17:05:59 +0000

Since I’m now an instructional coach with the district, I will no longer be posting class assignments/activities here on this blog. You might want to check out my Coaching Wiki!

Standard, Expanded, and Expanded Exponential forms

madmathteacher — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:21:10 +0000

Work with a partner to find a helpful web site on these 3 different ways to write numbers. Share your web site as a comment on this post. And the winners are…

The best link shared by your classmates:
#1) http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00001385.shtml shared by Garrett — has many excellent links including some of our runners-up…a great resource!

The runners-up:
#2) http://www.aaamath.com/plc31d-placevalue-add.html shared by Brody, Abby, and Tylan — has a good description of place value and expanded form, along with an interactive practice game.
#3) http://www.studyzone.org/testprep/math4/d/hp/standard.htm shared by John, William, and Chase — has an interactive practice game for expanded form.
#4) http://www.icoachmath.com/SiteMap/ExpandedForm.html shared by Ellie, Sadie, Allison, Amanda, Charley, and Kelsie — has an excellent description of standard and expanded forms, but some students seemed to be getting a message that this site may require you to install extra software to view it correctly?
#5) http://mathcentral.uregina.ca/QQ/database/QQ.09.07/h/kent1.html shared by Alex, Ryan, John, Tyler, Carissa, Alex, Molly, Tyler, Dylan, Allison, Amanda, Kenzi, Kaitlynn, Charley, and Kelsie — a very popular site and one of the only ones in this list to explain expanded exponential form!
#6) http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/57137.html shared by Michael and Molly — another good explanation of standard and expanded forms.

Equation Projects

madmathteacher — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:37:06 +0000

Students completed these equation projects earlier in the year, mostly on the SMARTBoard. I finally got a chance to convert most of them into PowerPoint slide shows so that you should be able to download and view them. Check out their good work!

PowerPoint downloads:

Screencasts (require Flash player):

abhinav austin ryanabhinav austin ryan

Applegate Grant

madmathteacher — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:07:53 +0000

As we close out the school year, I would like to thank the John Russell Applegate Fund for Teachers at Mid-Nebraska Community Foundation, based here in North Platte, for funding Adams Middle School’s “Interactive Technology for Math Students” grant. Through the funding they provided, our school was able to purchase two Elmo TT-02s document cameras and two SMART Airliner wireless slates to increase student engagement in the mathematics curriculum. (To see just a few of the products we digitally photographed, visit these links: http://madmathteacher.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/tessellations-symmetry/ and http://madmathteacher.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/circle-graph-winners/.) Students were able to share their work much more effectively and more engagingly using these tools — the days of recopying their work onto the board or overhead projector are gone! — and as the teacher, I was able to write on the digital chalkboard from anywhere in the classroom, enhancing my ability to support students throughout the classroom even during whole-class instruction. We are very grateful to the Mid-Nebraska Community Foundation for the learning opportunities they have helped to provide and expand, and so we publicly thank them for funding our Applegate Grant application.

Geometry Formulas

madmathteacher — Thu, 07 May 2009 13:18:34 +0000

If you could be any one of the formulas we’ve studied, which one would you be, and why?
- square A = S²
- rectangle A = L x W
- parallelogram A = B x H
- triangle A = 1/2 x B x H
- trapezoid A = 1/2 x (B1 + B2) x H
- circle A = π x R²
- circumference C = π x D
- rectangular prism V = L x W x H
- rectangular prism SA = 2 (L x W + L x H + W x H)
- cylinder V = π x R² x H
- cylinder SA = 2 x π x R² + π x D x H
Find a new formula that you think is interesting. Share the link and tell why you chose it.
On a totally unrelated note, today (5/7/09) is an Odd Day — one of only six days this century whose date features three consecutive odd numbers (this happened on 1/3/05 and 3/5/07 and will happen again on 7/9/11, 9/11/13, and 11/13/15). Check out the web site http://www.oddday.net/ and tell us what you think about it.

Tessellations & Symmetry

madmathteacher — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:46:56 +0000

My challenge classes today spent some time exploring line symmetry and tessellations using GeoReflectors. My favorite was Kyle’s in period 7:

Kyle L's drawing

Here are pictures of two of 9th period’s favorites:

Audrey G's drawing

Alec W's drawing

These pictures were taken using an Elmo TT-02s document camera, purchased with funding from the John Russell Applegate Fund for Teachers at Mid-Nebraska Community Foundation, based in North Platte.

Circle Graph Winners!

madmathteacher — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:06:34 +0000

We had so many high-quality circle graphs! The winners showed above-and-beyond creativity, while still communicating their results very clearly.

Winners:

1st Period Winner: Aaron H. -- Favorite football team

2nd Period Winner: Trevor W. and Alex T. -- Favorite fruit

5th Period Winner: Justin R. -- Favorite restaurant

7th Period Winner: Skye S. -- Favorite subject in school

9th Period Winners: Tori K. and Madalynn D. -- Favorite kind of pop

Honorable Mention:

1st Period: Victoria K. and Nick H. -- Favorite core class

5th Period: Taylor B. -- Favorite brand of gum

7th Period: Erin L. -- Favorite teacher

7th Period: Ryan O. -- Where would you live?

9th Period: Darian A. and Alec W. -- Favorite NBA team

9th Period: Audrey G. and Kristen W. -- Favorite fruit

9th Period: Miranda M. -- Do you like soccer?

9th Period: Tanner M. -- Favorite class

9th Period: Ian B. and Jesse W. -- Would you eat a chicken waffle? (YES--it's delicious!)

9th Period: Hayley S. and Mika R. -- Favorite college volleyball team (look at all that Husker RED!)

These pictures were taken using an Elmo TT-02s document camera, purchased with funding from the John Russell Applegate Fund for Teachers at Mid-Nebraska Community Foundation, based in North Platte.

Online Measurement Activity

madmathteacher — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:08:24 +0000

Ruler Activity http://www.funbrain.com/measure/index.html
You will get a choice about level of difficulty and either standard or metric measurement. Spend 5-10 minutes on each area and move up in levels of difficulty until you have 10 correct in each category. Be sure to do activities that are precise to the millimeter and 16th of an inch.

Protractor Activity http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/protractor.html
You will get a short tutorial about how to move the protractor. You also get choices about how precise the measurements will become. (You click on the round blue buttons to do each activity.) Begin at 5 degrees of precision and do at least 10 problems. Then move on to 1 degree of precision. This is much more difficult. Use the bottom toolbar to rotate the protractor. Move it with the click and drag to place the center point of the protractor into the vertex.

Another Protractor Web Site http://www.keymath.com/x3311.xml
Try this one out for more practice.

Angles in a Triangle http://www.edukate.net/number_files/angles2.html
This website measures angles in triangles. It requires a bit more thought since the protractor will not rotate. Try a few of these!

Angle Activities at www.classzone.com http://www.classzone.com/cz/books/msmath_2_na/get_chapter_group.htm?cin=4&ci=10&rg=ani_math&npos=1&spos=1&at=animations&var=animations
Play Golf, Angles, and Polygons. Remember that complementary means two angles that equal 90 degrees. Supplementary means two angles that equal 180 degrees.

Solving Equations

madmathteacher — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:13:58 +0000

Over the next week, we will be studying how to solve one- and two- step linear equations. Your assignment is to create a written or digital tutorial/explanation that describes how to solve these types of equations. You should be sure to explain/show each step in the process, and use evidence/examples to support your steps. Your tutorial is due no later than Friday, January 30. (Examples of a digital tutorial would be a screencast, a video, a comment posted to this blog entry, etc. — see Mr. Smith or e-mail if you have questions.)