City Angles

Making learning angles fun with our city angles project..

While incorporating the math practices of perseverance and math models. 

Brains Grow and Change

So many of parents and students...and sometimes even teachers...hold the mindset that some can do math and some just can't.

This. Is. A. Myth.

It is NOT true.
Everyone can learn math!
Everyone's brain can grow and change.

Watch the video link below to hear from the expert, Jo Boaler, from Stanford University, that everyone needs to change this mindset.

https://vimeo.com/177320916?ref=em-share

Parent Letter

Dear Parents,

Happy Friday!  With two full weeks of school completed, we have accomplished a bunch!  Diagnostic pre-tests, setting up our ISNs (Interactive Student Notebooks), and learning the ropes of our classroom have all been checked off the to-do list.  This last week we dove into angles as we learn to identify types of angle relationships in order to find missing angle measurements.  Your student has a bit of practice to do over this three day weekend (pg. 137 & 138) if they did not finish it in class today. 

Schoology has been set up and our lessons and necessary handouts up to this point have been uploaded and ready to use.  Within Schoology is another resource, our online livebinder textbook, which is chalk full of helpful videos, math games, and how-to's to reference at home.  

My goal every year is to keep my classroom blog updated!  My hope this year is to continue farther into the year than I have in the past.  LOL!  Surely this year I will have more time! (fingers crossed)   :)  You can find our classroom blog at mccabesmathmoments.blogspot.com.

Just an FYI for next week Wednesday through Friday.  I will be attending the awards ceremony and professional development workshops in Washington DC.  My goal for my students is to continue to move their thinking so that I can see growth with their understanding of angles when I return.  We have had a great start with supplementary, complementary, vertical, corresponding, alternate interior and exterior angles!

I have loved getting to know your students these last few weeks.  I have seen positive attitudes and perseverance for solving problems...all necessary skills for being successful.  Students have willingly volunteered and shared their thinking and I have loved the times when their questions or justifications have pushed everyone's thinking...even mine!  

Looking forward to a great year! 

Mrs. McCabe

Justifying Our Thoughts

If there is one thing that I love to hear, it's students talking...about math!

Mistakes are Good!

For so long now, mistakes have gotten a bad rap.
It's like we are conditioned to try to not make a mistake.
When in reality, mistakes are how we learn.
We have all made mistakes.
And we all will continue to make mistakes.
For. As. Long. As. We. Live.

So instead of looking at mistakes as an embarrassment, something to avoid, or something that makes us want to stop altogether,
We need to understand mistakes.

And that's what we did today as we started class.

Students were to write how they felt when they goofed up, made a mistake, or failed at something on one side of the paper.
After our thoughts were down on paper, I had the students crumple the paper up, signifying that how we once thought of mistakes should just be thrown away.

I had them uncrumple the paper to show all the crinkles.
We had a very mini lesson on brain research and how when a mistake is made, it actually creates a synapse, strengthening neural pathways in the learning process.
Students then traced the creases to illustrate how synapses are created when we goof up.

As part of our ISN (Interactive Student Notebook), the right hand side of the notebook is for student output (think guided practice, reflection, questions, to do's, etc).  Today, they were to respond to the statement, "How I will look at mistakes from this point forward."  It will take some time to retrain our brain, we will make mistakes as we fall back into old habits, but my hope is at the end we find ourselves embracing mistakes as part of the learning process!

Moving Our Thinking in 2016-2017!!

McCabe’s Math Classes:

Where we AIM high and MOVE our thinking

2016-2017

Expectations for Mathematics…8 Habits To Make Math Easier!

1. Perseverance – Make sense of a problem and stick to it!
2. Reason
3. Communication – Construct and justify
4. Apply math through math models
5. Use appropriate tools
6. Precision – Vocabulary, computation, units of measurement…
7. Look for patterns
8. Look for structure

Math Notebooks – To record our MATH CONVERSATIONS

Your math 3-ring notebook will be set up in units.  Each unit will have: 

     ~ notes, handouts/worksheets, and practice

Your interactive math composition notebook will be set up with a table of contents and will include:

       ~ graphic organizers, vocabulary, & a journal of your learning

Keep your math notebook complete until THE END OF THE YEAR.

Expectations for MOVING YOUR THINKING…

• CHOOSE YOUR ATTITUDE, so you can MOVE YOUR THINKING.

          Attitude is almost EVERYTHING! A study of 3000 top achievers found that 85% attributed               their success to attitude!

• MAKE THEIR DAY!  Be respectful at all times to others in the  classroom.

• Mistakes are encouraged…they help us MOVE OUR THINKING.
• When we FAIL we are really just showing that it was our First Attempt In Learning.

• BE PRESENT…this includes completing assignments, studying for tests, and coming to class prepared.

          Bring to class every day:  pencil,  Math notebook,  pen,  CALCULATOR, and AR Book

• INTERJECT FUN…this creates energy to MOVE YOUR THINKING

  Grades

  Grades will be taken from a variety of areas:

• Quizzes/Tests
• Projects with rubrics
• Practice
• Problems
• Participation

Practice Completion:  All practice items MUST BE completed by the next day for a 100% completion grade.

Show ALL your work.  Try EVERY problem. 

LATE/MISSING WORK

Students may complete late/missing practice problems BEFORE the unit quiz for 75%.

Late work will NOT be accepted after the unit quiz.

QUIZ RETAKES

To be eligible for a quiz retake, all practice must be completed before the unit quiz.

Need Help at Home?  We’re Online!!!

Schoology has a ton of resources!  

* Lesson videos 

* Assignments 

* Link to online textbook with even more helpful websites

That was Punny...No Pun Intended!

I never know when it will hit, but here lately, we have had some pretty good puns in our math classroom.
Oh sure, it all started at the beginning of the year when after introducing our Fish! philosophy and how it ties to learning math, and I just happened to say, "If you are floundering with this math problem..."

I got it.
No one else did.
But it did crack me up.

Yesterday, when playing Battleship with my 2nd hour folks, I noticed that their strategy was totally different than mine.  I was using the coordinate graph to help guide my "torpedo lines" and they were just adjusting the equations from previous attempts.  Ever being the helpful math teacher that I am, even though I was losing, I thought I would share what I had noticed.  What came out of my mouth was totally unintended but literally had me in stitches.  "You guys are totally missing the boat here.  How can the coordinate graph help when firing your torpedos?"  Did you catch it?  No one else did either.  Miss the boat?  We are playing battleship...trying to sink boats.  Hahahaha!!!