Math Musical Chairs

Musical Chairs - Math Style

How does this work? I played Spooky Skeletons and Monster Mash for Halloween; however, you can play any music you want. 

Teacher directions: 

• Split students into two groups - I had one group report to right side of room and one to the left side of the room when they were out. 
• Round one take 1 chair away from the center of the room, play music and have student who doesn't have a chair go to their side. At the end of the round, place a math problem on the board for students to solve. If students in the game solved this incorrectly, they were out. 
• Round two - take  away two chairs, play music and have students who are out move to the appropriate side of the room. 
• Repeat until only one student remains. 

Once you have students on both sides of the room out, have them race to see who can complete the math problem on the board the quickest. They may talk to each other but students in the game could not. If the students on the right side of the room solved it correctly first, they chose someone from the left side (from the center-still in the game) to be out.

I have 31 students in all of my classes so I had 3 students going out every round otherwise we may not have finished a game. 

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Pumpkin Patch

Get into the Halloween Spirit... With the "Pumpkin Patch" Activity. 

I found the following pumpkin by doing a google search for reusable pumpkin images. 

Next, I wrote problems from our current unit on the pumpkins. I made 31 pumpkins with different math problems on each because that is my largest class.  

Then, I cut them out, hole punched them, and tied a string through the hole long enough to fit over the head of a student in class and hang as a necklace. 

On Monday, students will choose one to wear and put on like a necklace. They will solve their problem first. (The answer to their problem is on the back of the pumpkin so they can check it! Next, they will partner with another student in the room and solve each other's problems. They will check each other's work. Then partner up with someone new and repeat the process.

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Functions - my Introduction

I launched with this video - which I absolutely love. It was created by a group of Algebra 1 teachers. 

Once we watched the video, we created a graphic organizer that you see below:

We took problems looked at function in various forms (mapping diagram, table and set of ordered pairs). On the inside of the flap, we identified domain and range. 

Finally, we played a Kahoot to check for understanding which they loved. If you've never played Kahoot, check it out here! 

www.getkahoot.com

Why don't my students understand translations?

Translations are a topic that students struggle with. Why?  Because they can't visualize them. They don't know what the functions look like or how adding/subtracting numbers affects the parent function. 

First, I would launch by using Desmos. Have students graph y=x^2 then y=x^2 + 1, y = x^2 + 2 , y = x^2 + 3 and look for the pattern.  (Great application of looking for repeated reasoning!)

Next, have them graph y = x^2, then y=x^2 -1, y = x^2 - 5, etc and look for the pattern. 

Then, y=x^2 with y=(x-1)^2, y=(x - 4)^2, etc. Then y=(x+3)^2, y=(x+5)^2, etc and look for patterns. 

Once they see the shifts, (up, down, left, right). Check it with something concrete.  

I used a sticky wicky that I found in my house and a small sheet of graph paper. You could give each student a pipe cleaner, they can bend them to form a quadratic then shift them on the graph paper. You can give them different equation to graph and they can physically move the pipe cleaner on their graph paper to where they would shift from the parent graph. 

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"Sort It"

One of my favorite activities to do in class is a sort.  There are two types (closed) where you give students the categories and (open) where they sort and write the categories. We are going to be doing a closed sort in class this week.

I am going to give my students a copy of the properties shown in the google document below.

Teacher directions: 

• Copy the problems (enough for each group to have one set). I use a different color paper for each group. 
• Cut apart the set and place them in a ziplock bag or envelope. 
• Distribute an envelope or ziplock bag to each group. 
• Give students the categories for the sort. (simplify, multiplication property of equality, distributive property, etc.)

Student directions:

• Take the problems out of the bag. 
• Sort them into the appropriate category. 

After the students have sorted, discuss the properties and where they placed them. If you have a document camera, this would be a great to use with that. Want more activities like this? Sign-up for our emails using the form below: 

How many cups does it take to reach my height?

I wrote on my smart board:  How many cups does it take to reach my height?  Then I asked students to generate a list of questions they wanted me to answer. They came up with:

• How tall am I?
• What type of cup are we using? (When they asked this, I gave them two styrofoam cups but they weren't allowed to touch them yet)
• How are we going to stack them? 

Next, I had them make an estimate for the amount of cups needed and I recorded their guess on the board. 

Then, I had them solve the problem and write their strategy on their personal whiteboards. I gave them 10 minutes. 

I had them present their solutions to the class. Some wrote equations, others guess and checked, some made a table for the pattern. 

Finally, we actually stacked cups to me. This lesson took roughly 39 minutes. 

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Person Search

Tomorrow my students are going to be participating in a search within our classroom to get to know each other. 


Directions:

• Give each person a copy of the person search handout. Get your copy here: https://themathmentors.mykajabi.com/p/ice-breakers
• Students will walk around and interview each other. They may ask a question such as, "how many siblings do you have?" It can't just be yes or no. If the answer matches a square, have that student initial it. If not, ask another question. 
• Repeat until the entire sheet is initialed. 

We can't flip like Simone Biles but...

Place your students into groups of 3 or 4. In their group, they are going to create an olympic type game that we can play in our classroom. Groups will start with their own game and collect the data. For example, if we are doing a standing jump from a line on the ground, we would have a sheet to record how far everyone jumped. 

This would be great for a statistics unit. We could graph each distribution, write comparison, discuss measures of center, standard deviation, etc. The possibilities are endless. Write a comment for how you could use this in your room.  Thank you for reading!



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Rich Tasks

When I meet my students for the very first time on Tuesday, they will be sitting in groups of 4 and I will have them work on their very first task.



I will launch it by having students generate what good/bad group work looks like. Then we will be launching into our very first group task. Want how I am doing it and a copy of my first task? Sign-up using the form below!

Not Your VFW Hall Bingo!!

This is a game that students of all ages will love! I've played it with high school freshmen and seniors. If you would like a video explaining step by step how to run this in class as well as a pdf with teacher/student directions and a copy of the activity I played with my algebra 1 class, complete the form below. 

Ahhh...school is right around the corner!!!

Icebreaker Activities:

The first week of school, I focus on building relationships with my new batch of students. I do one icebreaker activity every day.  My favorite one is 2 Truths and a Lie.  Which one is my lie? 

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Don't break the ice, wait we want to!

How to break the ice with your students the first week of school? Use the form below, to receive our two favorite ice breakers. The beginning of school will be here before you know it!


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Increase student engagement

How would you like to engage every student in your room?  How would you like to be able to create engaging lessons in only 10 minutes or less?

Sample Lesson: How do you increase engagement when teaching formulas?  Blow them up and give students equations to cut and place on top of the actual equation!

Heads Up Vocabulary Game

Warning - Your students will want to play this again and again!

Teacher Directions: 

• Type out vocabulary words for current unit, one per page. 
• Copy enough for each group of two students to have a copy. 
• You can have the students split their vocabulary list. I could hold the words up first and my partner can give me clues. Once I am out of words, we switch roles. Otherwise, you can have each student do the entire list. I hold all the words up, my partner gives me clues. We shuffle our vocabulary words and switch roles. 

Student Directions: 

• Hold one vocabulary word up to your head. 
• Your partner needs to give you clues until you say the word. 
• Place another word to your forehead and repeat the first two steps. 

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"Who Done It"

This is an activity that we did today with our Algebra students. I have a fake wall joining my room with the teacher who has the regular 8th grade math class. Luckily, we are both working on exponential growth functions. We opened our wall and did a joint murder mystery today in class. We promoted the activity all week - telling our students that it would be a great time. We began with a warm-up during which she left the room to put on the Sherlock outfit. I made my way back to my light switches. With no warning, I let out an ear piercing scream, turned the lights off and hit the ground. Then she burst into the room and said, "I was gone for five minutes and you killed your teacher!" She began to interrogate students and found the first clue under one of their desks (these were planted prior to class starting). These were distributed and the activity began. We mixed our two classes up and each group had a piece to the clue. After they solved the math problems, they received a deciphering key from us. The key had different solutions next to a letter. Their first clue was skirt so they new their killer was wearing a skirt. They were wearing people with different attributes. They deciphered clues until they found who in the room committed the crime. 



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