February & March Wrap Up

Function review station

Two more crazy months! Our days were full of everything but snow 😒. We managed to have a day off for wind though! Melissa and I attended several conferences and STEM events in VA where we discussed active learning strategies with great success. In the classroom, we have had a lot of great activities going on. We've covered topics from functions to transformations. We even squeezed in a little coding.

Coding made easy and accessible for all. 

We are approaching 8 months in our new classroom. We still feel as excited and motivated by it as we did in September. As we've had the opportunity to meet and train other teachers, we are continually impressed by how teachers are trying to incorporate active learning strategies into their "traditional" classrooms. Also, after being 8 months in, we have really been able to streamline our planning process. We have both said numerous times this year that we can't imagine having to go back to teaching in a traditional classroom. In fact, the furniture and space have had such an impact on our students and their learning that we would like to incorporate even more flexible seating next year. We are excited to be meeting with Steelcase next week to discuss the results of our pre/post assessments. 

We are planning to return to our normal posting schedule in April. As we move into SOL testing season, our hope is to incorporate even more hands-on, active lessons. 

STILL HERE!

My goodness! It has been a while since our last update. To be honest, it has been really crazy AND we haven't had a full week of school since winter break! After winter break, we had bonus break where we missed 3 days. Since then we have either had a snow day or a delayed opening every week. Needless to say, we have had some trouble getting back into the routine.  

However, lots of great things have been happening. Our kiddos are continuing to impress us with their efforts. We have amazing kids that work so hard! We moved right through our Proportions/Consumer Applications Unit during all the snow days. I'll share more instructional highlights next week.  If you aren't following us on Instagram, you really should! We update daily there. Come follow us @mathinmotionalc

On a professional level, there have been some exciting developments. We recently found out that our proposal was accepted and we will be presenting at VCTM conference in March. So, if you're planning on attending the two-day conference at Radford University stop in and see us! We will also be presenting at a local STEM Summitt later this month. If you are local (Stafford/Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania area) then you should consider stopping by on February 24th at Fredericksburg Academy. We will be highlighting active learning strategies!

Lastly, we had hoped to open our TPT store in January. Honestly, there just hasn't been a spare moment so we've decided to push the opening to summer. We are both disappointed but excited to have some more time to build our resources. Thank you for your continued support!

Oh, did we mention that you should follow us on Instagram?! Yeah? Pop on over there now and check out our cool Connect Four game! @mathinmotionalc

Week 9 - Tom Turkey & Battleship

I have to start by giving credit to Lindsay Perro on TpT. We used her Building Frank activity a few weeks ago with our 7th graders and it was so engaging and full of content! The kids loved it! So, we used her activity as inspiration for our Building Tom Turkey activity that we created this week.The activity will be available in our TpT store next week. 


Each student received a paper plate. We had all of the other supplies (scissors, glue, coloring supplies) for them at each station. They rotated through 8 stations where they solved a word problem involving fractions, decimals and percents. The answer to the word problem determined the color of the feather they used to attach to the paper plate to build Tom. There was a station to determine the color of his body and his nose, also. We used the last station as an extra decorating station so that the students could personalized the turkey. They had so much fun! We took a topic, word problems with rationals numbers, that is typically pretty bland and turned it into a hands-on station activity that resulted in high engagement and energy! They worked so well together in their small teams and their turkeys turned out great!


In 8th grade we continued working on solving multi-step equations. We added the next step to the process of moving the variable to one side. We spent a lot of time doing example after example. We ended the week with a game of Battleship. The students worked in teams to solve the equations in order to get a chance to reveal a ship. This game is always a huge hit with our students. The template is a smart document. We simply insert our problems and rearrange the ships for each class/period. We weren't able to get through every problem but each team was able to reveal at least one ship. One of our favorite things about these games is seeing the students come together and help each other. We will definitely use this game again in the future with a different topic. 

Week 8 - Math, Art and Food

The 7th graders participated in blended lessons this week to learn how to compare and order rational numbers... WITHOUT calculators! One of the reasons that we are such huge fans of blended lessons is that every student is engaged in the instruction and note taking. Look at the picture below, EVERYONE is engaged! They have the ability to pause the instruction (video), rewind and rewatch until it makes sense. This is also a great way for our students to practice note-taking, at their own pace. 

One of the follow-up activities included artwork. We have some very creative students this year that really excel with creative projects. Students were tasked to create a picture using a variety of colors. Then they had to determine the equivalent fraction, decimal and percents for each color (number of squares) they used in their pictures.

Food was the theme this week with the 8th graders. We started our unit on solving multi-step equations. When I say multi-step I mean MULTI step....6, 7, 8+ steps. In the past, this has been a unit that students typically struggle with due to all of the steps and the exceptions to the procedure. We decided to break down each step, spending a few days on each step to really reinforce each small part of the process. We started with learning how to combine like terms. In order to make it memorable, we incorporated "Lucky Charms' into the lesson. The students sorted the marshmallows in order to identify like terms, determine which marshmallows could be combined, etc.

After mastering combining like terms, the students moved on to the Distributive Property. For the intro, we used everyone's favorite fast food restaurant McDonald's (truth be told I much prefer Chic-Fila or Chipotle but McDonald's works better for the lesson and all the students are familiar with it).We used value meals to help show how numbers are distributed. Breaking down the steps seems to have helped. Now we just have to work on making sure the students avoid careless mistakes (those pesky negatives).  

Week 6 - Finally Fall!

Algebra links from Didax Education.

Fall is finally here! We kicked off the week with a round of mini-stations for the 8th graders. We figured we might as well join in on the candy season and incorporate it into a station. The 8th graders worked on replacement with variables and order of operations by using M&M's to determine variables. They used algebra tiles/links from Didax Education to play a domino-like game. Lastly, they used formulas to practice substituting variables. I know I sound like a broken record when I say how easily stations are to set up with our rolling tables and chairs, however, IT IS JUST SO EASY! We save so much time setting up stations and it is super easy for us to transition from 8th grade to 7th grade in the three minutes that the students have to change classes.

M&M substitution - everyone needs a little chocolate now and then.

In 7th grade, the students participated in individualized instruction by watching videos of the lessons on order of operations with integers. I know I'm probably repeating myself again but having a collaborative class with VERY diverse learners it is often difficult to address everyone's needs with a traditional lecture. With a video, each student has control over the pace of the lesson. They are able to practice their note-taking skills because they are able to pause and rewind the video as needed. Also, for students that may need additional time or extra practice, the video provides the needed flexibility. We ended the week with a game of "trashketball," Halloween style. Students answered questions to earn paper balls to throw into the trash/bucket. Points were awarded for the number of baskets made. The students really liked this game and I see us playing it again in the future.