There's a Facebook creator that I follow called "Good Questions to Ask in Math Class." Here are some of the questions that I like so far. I'll likely update this post as she posts more that I want to remember.

Math Task - 393

A 12-hour digital clock displays hours and minutes. What is the largest possible sum of the digits in the display?

Math Task - 390

The 5-digit number 2A34B is divisible by 15. How many possible values are there for A+B?

Math Task - 389

When three numbers are added two at a time, the sums are 26, 43, and 67. What is the sum of the three numbers?

Math Task - 388

The product of four different whole numbers, each greater than 1, is 120. What is the sum of the numbers?

Math Task - 387

Guess the number I stand for.

• I am a 3 digit number XYZ.
• The sum of X and Y is 13.
• The sum of Y and Z is 15.
• I am less than 600.
• The sum of X, Y, and Z is 19.

These were fun to figure out. I'll have to use them with my students.

Divisibility by 7

 Well, this is fascinating.

It's a graph by David Wilson to determine if something is divisible by 7. Check out the link to Tanya Khovanova's blog to see how it works.

"Write down a number n. Start at the small white node at the bottom of the graph. For each digit d in n, follow d black arrows in a succession, and as you move from one digit to the next, follow 1 white arrow.

For example, if n = 325, follow 3 black arrows, then 1 white arrow, then 2 black arrows, then 1 white arrow, and finally 5 black arrows.

If you end up back at the white node, n is divisible by 7."

The comment section over there is just as fascinating.

Smart Board Symmetry

At our new school we have these fancy Smart Board screens and I think it would be awesome to set up a few of them to let students doodle with a symmetry simulator. Here are some that I've found while I'm at home that I want to test out in my classroom.

For the littles:

It talks about the type of symmetry. For this we could lower a board to the shortest it can go and let kids play around.

Weave Silk is a pretty one:

On this one you can choose between 0 and 6-fold rotational symmetry. You can also share your results via email. Perhaps there's a way to print designs?

Math Is Fun has one, except I wish it had a full screen option:

I love that you can choose the symmetry: x-axis, y-axis, x=y, x=-y, origin, and none.

Can I Create a Math Festival?

 Long time no see - Since I last wrote here I have changed schools twice and gone from being a special education math teacher to a general ed one. I've gotten my professional license, earned my my teaching middle school math certificate, I've attended a math-art conference, and settled in with one grade and one subject. I teach math to 7th graders. It is an adventure every single day. I typically start strong, lose some wind mid-November, get my act together for January, lose some wind by March, and coast to the end of the year. I'm hopeful that teaching one grade consistently and getting to improve my instruction is concrete and memorable ways will help keep wind in my sails through out the year. I'm also hopeful that I can take on more recreational math activities in addition to my work responsibilities. That said, I plan on proposing a Math Festival/Family Math Night to my principal when we return from break.

My school is incredibly math-focused - creating a new related art this year to help kids develop problem solving skills - and being on us all the time about our rigor. We've pushed back a bit this year because we feel our students are over-tested and we can use the time for better instruction while still collecting data. I hopeful that my principal will welcome the idea of a fun math activity. One where we can bring in the community and engage middle school students to run stations and really learn the math required for what they are presenting. That's my hope at least.

I was thinking it was about time that I dusted this blog off and started sharing the journey - more for myself than anything else. I'm under no delusion that others will read this - I just want a place to store ideas and point other people interested in the same ideas to go to. I've been up and down the internet trying to find ideas. There are so many but not particularly consolidated. This will be my space to do that. Also, to lean into the math of each idea. More than anything, I'm excited to dive into recreational math and learn some things about the amazing subject I get the honor of teaching!

So, here's the preliminary plan:

• Create 17 stations (I like the number 17 because it's prime - for that reason, I also wouldn't mind 23, but I don't want to get ahead of myself - 17 is a big number of stations already and I don't even know if I have support yet)
• Lean into the year 2025 and all the mathematical properties of that number.
• Aim for Pi Day! What better way to have a recreational math festival than by using it to celebrate the most popular math holiday? It's perfect!
• Build on it from year to year - I want to start with a night of fun math and build it into a math symposium with contributions from teachers, students, and community members. One of the coolest things my district does is hold a yearly film festival - I want it to be big like that, but instead of being something for the high school kids, I want my students to own it.
• I guess the actual preliminary plan is get support from Admin... email has been sent... fingers-crossed.

Open Up Resources Resources

I've been teaching Open Up Resources since September. It is my first middle school curriculum because this is my first year in middle school. So far, I love it. I teach it in 7th & 8th grade and it's possible that we'll move to teach it in 6th Grade next year (I hope at least since I teach all 3 grades). This post will be a collection of things I find this weekend that I want to come back to. Hopefully later posts will suss out what's useful and not.

6th Grade:
Khan Academy Tie-In
Unit 1 Objectives & Big Ideas
Rubrics for Assessments
Unit 1 Module
Use with Aquarium Ratios?
Unit 3 Lesson 16 Desmos
Unit 4 Lesson 1 Desmos
Unit 6 Desmos Activities
Unit 7 Desmos Activities


7th Grade:
Khan Academy Tie-In
IXL & Common Core Alignment
Slides for Every Unit & Lesson
Proportional Relationships Checklist
Proportional Relationships
Unit 5, Lesson 8 - Velocity & Hot Wheels

8th Grade:
Khan Academy Tie-In
Rigid Transformations
Transformation Golf (Desmos)


Any Grade:
Mr. Morgan's OUR Video Series
Working Google Doc with Resources (primarily 6th, also 7th)

Number Visual (from picture above)

General Resources:
Open Middle
Open Ended vs. Open Middled
Writing on Google Slides
NearPod

Student-Led Conferences

Tomorrow afternoon & evening are Parent/Teacher Conferences. I don't particularly like these times events, but I think I could. At the moment I have fear that I will be blamed for a student's lack of success (despite my efforts) and it's really uncomfortable for me to tell a parent that their child isn't doing everything they could be doing to find success. This is probably because I remember very well what the nights my parents went to conferences were like. I was terrified that they would find out what I already knew: that I wasn't trying my hardest or completing all my work.

I wonder if I was more involved in the process if I would fear those nights so much? I wonder if I knew they were coming and I had time to prepare for them if would be really be slacking off to the extent that I was? I never heard about the good things I was doing even though I'm sure my teachers mentioned them because the bad overshadowed everything.d

For all of these reasons I'm really interested in Student-Led Conferences. I'm going to use the space below to drop links and resources I find on the internet regarding them so perhaps by the fall I can expect my students pull together what they are proud of and what they need to work on. I think this could be a valuable practice, even for the students of parents who can't attend on the actual night (Maybe I can send them something in lieu of the conference).

Anyway, here we go:

LINKS:
Student-Led Conferences: Resources for Educators
When Kids Lead Their Parent-Teacher Conferences

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Mrs. Dietrich's class is using MyBluPrint to make a digital portfolio, but it appears that you need to pay for that site. I wonder what other sites could be used to create an online portfolio. Google Drive?

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I'm sure all the resources are great, but I really like the clock sign for the door of conferences. It's so easy to go over the 7 minutes allotted, if waiting parents knocked respectfully it would keep the conferences moving and everyone would get to where they need to go on time.

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Reading List

It is unrealistic the think that I will get through all these books this summer on top of everything else I'd like to do, but I'm going to try. I think the benefit is that (besides Radical Equations, which I've already read) they are not novels and I can read them each a chapter at a time. I think I'll put my notes on each book as a blog post so that I can can hold myself accountable to what I learn.