Merry Christmas everyone! Welcome to Day 2 of my 12 Days of Christmas Giveaway s Everyday, yes, EVERYDAY for the next 11 days I will be giving away a classroom resource that I have developed to everyone who visits! It is, however, the holidays so I’d love for you to spread the Christmas cheer as well and link up to give away a resource of your own! You can link up and celebrate with us for 1 day, 2 days, or all 12 days! Please keep the holiday spirit going, if you enjoy the freebies, link up… Read More
12 Days of Christmas Giveaway! Day 1
Its that time of year again! Last year I celebrated the Christmas season by hosting a linky-event and I am bringing it back again this year! s Everyday, yes, EVERYDAY for the next 12 days I will be giving away a classroom resource that I have developed to everyone who visits! It is, however, the holidays so I’d love for you to spread the Christmas cheer as well and link up to give away a resource of your own! You can link up and celebrate with us for 1 day, 2 days, or all 12 days! Please… Read More
Dropping The Beat: Power Laws in The House!
In Grade 9 math we have been discussing Powers, more specifically, the six major Power Laws: – Power of a Power – Zero Exponent Law – Product of Powers – Quotient of Powers – Power of a Product – Power of a Quotient After being introduced to each of these laws (over the course of four classes) and having time to practice applying them (over the course of four classes), my Grade 9 students are now creating songs about each of these laws! In groups of 4-6, students were assigned a specific Power Law to base their song… Read More
2 Stars & a Wish: Week 14
This past week represented my shortest teaching week this year as I was away both Tuesday and Wednesday at a math conference. While I enjoyed the PD opportunity, and learnt a lot of effective strategies, it is a lot of work to be away from your classroom for so long. I came back to what felt like chaos since my room was no longer organized to my expectations (I may be a tad OCD) and not all of my students behaved the way they do while I am present. I had several students deviate from routines and fail to hand-in… Read More
David McKillop: Mental Math Strategies in Middle Years
Today was day one of a two-day professional development session I’m attending as part of my Professional Growth Plan for the 2013-2014 school year. The sessions, presented by David McKillop, focus on mental math strategies (today) and assessment practices (tomorrow). David has over 30 years experience in the education field and is currently involved with Pearson’s “First Steps” and “Numeracy Nets” programs. I haven’t developed a passion for math the same way I have for social studies and earth sciences but I felt that David’s presentation was very engaging (there was even singing!?) and I’m walking away with several strategies… Read More
2 Stars & a Wish: Week 13
Tis’ the season! December is upon us and there is only 15 teaching days left until Christmas holidays. Technically it is even less since I am away at a conference 2 days this week and we have some spirit activities in the last week that will take away from class time. Again I fell off the reflection-bandwagon due to the craziness that is report cards & parent-teach interviews but I am committed to keeping with this! Two things that I think went well this week are: 1) Incorporating Student Suggestions in My Grade 10 Class– Shortly after report cards… Read More
#MTBoS Mission 7 – A Day In A Life
At the start of October I signed up to participate in #MTBoS as a way to connect with more math educators and learn about different strategies/activities that could help me as a first year math teacher. I’m not exactly sure what I did wrong, but I signed up to get the weekly challenges emailed to me and added their wordpress blog to my Feedly account and for some reason I never got any updates! 8 weeks later… I noticed that a few of the bloggers that I follow have jumped on the #MTBoS wagon and are blogging about week… Read More
Stanley the Koosh Ball!
This post is for all of you that have a SMART Board or other brand of Interactive Whiteboard in your classroom. Did you know that you can use a “Koosh Ball” to activate your board and, thus, create a kinesthetic learning opportunity for your students? Before I graduated with my B.Ed I spent a lot of time substitute teaching in a Kindergarten class near our home. As part of their morning calendar time, students reviewed months/days/years by activating review prompts on their SMART Board with a “Koosh Ball”. These rubbery balls are the perfect sensory tools if you have… Read More
My 1st Parent-Teacher Experience
On Monday of this week our first round of report cards went home and officially kicked-off Parent-Teacher Interview week. Being that we are a K-12 school, our K-7 teachers scheduled and organized their own meetings which ran throughout the week. In the 8-12 end, our school secretary scheduled our meetings for us which were primarily held on Thursday after school and Friday during school-hours (there were no classes on Friday). Thursday marked a full day of teaching from 8:50-3:30 and then straight into interviews beginning at 4. By the time I had straightened up my room and ran… Read More
An Open Letter To Parents
Dear Parents/Guardians, As I sit here, reflecting on my first parent-teacher experience, I want to share the following thoughts that have been infiltrating my mind more and more. First, I would like to thank you for sharing your children with us:– for allowing teachers to have the opportunity to be a part of their lives… – for allowing us to witness their personality and appreciate their quirks…– for allowing us to be there on the good, bad, and out-right crazy days…– for allowing us to be a part of their development (academically, emotionally, etc)…– for allowing us to be… Read More