Helping Our Community

Over the past few months, I soon realized what a special group of learners were in my 5th period!  27 learners who came from various elementary schools, bringing with them a variety of learning styles and interests.  One commonality amongst all of them was their love of animals.  They loved our class "pet," which was a small stuffed Husky, named Wesson.  Because of their love of animals, I began to think and create a mini-PBL, which would focus on rational numbers as well as their passion for helping animals.  

After our entry event, learners were given the task of unpacking our standards.  We created both an individual and class Knows & Needs to Know chart, which served as our daily checklist to create a fundraiser to help the animals in our community!    

As we all know the days between Thanksgiving and Winter Break are filled with numerous activities that pull learners out of our classrooms.  With our task to create a fundraiser to help our local animal shelter, learners were motivated to come in before and after school to work on their tasks!  Workshops focused on rational numbers in recipes (multiplying and dividing) and budgeting and creating toys for the animals (adding and subtracting).  

Our class chose to take their final exam early, so they could work in their groups and make blankets for the shelter animals.  I loved watching these learners come together for the good of our community!  

Learning from Each Other

Like I mentioned earlier, we share our classroom with a Texas history class.  I'll be honest, growing up in St. Louis, I don't ever remember learning so much about Missouri as today's learner does in Texas!  Crazy thing is I not only learned about how Texas came to be, but I also began to collaborate with Coach Lawson on instructional strategies. 

One of my most favorite formative assessments that he implements is Jot Thought!  In all my years of being in a classroom, I thought why haven't I ever thought of this.  After watching his learners actively participate, the wheels in my brain began spinning.  I started asking questions and by fifth period, I was implementing this "new to me" strategy with my 6th graders! 

Our first Jot Thought was over ratios and equivalent fractions.  Our goal was to see which group could come up with the most words to describe ratios.  This was a great way for me to assess my learners' prior knowledge, as well as help plan our upcoming learning opportunities. 

Stacks of Post-It Notes were passed out to each table.  Learners would have 1.5 minutes to work independently to write down everything they knew about ratios and equivalent.  After the independent think time, each table group categorized their words and eliminated any duplicates. 
                           
I'm proud to say that Coach Lawson implemented stations based on what he had seen in our classes!  These stations focused on reading strategies, implementing technology and vocabulary, as well as writing.  Texas history was no longer just notes and discussion, but now created opportunities for collaboration and inquiry. 

                            

There was an excitement sparked in our room after these activities which served as a reminder of the importance of working together, even if you teach different contents....we can all still learn from each other! 

How Much Sugar is in Our Favorite Drink?

As we moved into our second six week's of learning, both 6th and 7th grade math, our focus continued to focus on ratios.  7th graders continued working with their knowledge of similarity and equivalent fractions, by focusing  on unit rates.  To make learning abit more engaging, we recreated Dan Meyer's 3 Act Sugar Packet using our learners' favorite drinks! 

 

Each table group analyzed the nutritional labels of the four drinks and determined the number of sugar packets in a serving.  Needless to say, they were shocked at how much was in a serving of Coke! 
                   

Because we had many learners who hadn't yet completed their unit 1 assessment, we created a Google Sites: Introduction to Proportionality with all of the information needed to complete the investigation.  This allowed our learners the opportunity to still participate in the activity, even if they weren't in our classrooms!  

Wrapping Up Our First Six Weeks of Learning

To say our first six week's grading period flew by, is an understatement!  September has been filled with the many firsts:  first day of school, major projects and assessments, school dance, Homecoming spirit week and our first football game.  Needless to say, everyone has been full of enthusiasm and lots of smiles!

In 7th grade math, we've wrapped up our first unit, which covered similar figures.  We have spent the past week working with the WON method.  The "WON" method provides some much needed structure for our learners as we deepen our knowledge of proportionality!  Because of their prior experiences with ratio tables, we introduced similar drawings with ratio tables.  Quickly, learners were challenged with how to find the solution to a not so "obvious" answer using a ratio table and that's when the WON method was introduced!

Of course, with the addition of WON, there was some hesitation and confusion, but we persevered and now it's become a go to method for many!  In fact, one girl asked, "Do we have to use ratio tables?  I love using the WON method!"  Music to my ears as she feels confident in using a new method and loves justifying her solutions with WON.

In 6th PAP math, we've just finished learning about area!  I loved hearing how proud the learners of Room 103 were of themselves, as they worked on both their Google Slides area review and their Flipgrid assignment.

                                            

A few days before our assessment, students were given the task of using Flipgrid to justify their solution to a problem that involved working backwards to find a missing dimension.  The rubric was given, which sparked amazing thinking as my inbox began to fill up with notifications of students' video submissions.

Responding back to my learners' videos

One of the most amazing parts of Flipgrid, is the immediate feedback that I received!  It was 9:00 PM, as I was watching and responding to our classmates, when I quickly realized majority of my learners were missing a part of the area formula for a triangle.  Forgetting to divide by two is what sets the formula of a triangle apart from the area of a quadrilateral, which our learners could explain in class.  However, after some time had passed between our classroom experience and their recording, we forgot.  After a few videos, I immediately created a warmup that allowed for more practice and discussion over the area of triangles!  I also added this into our Google Slides review which we began the following day in class.

At the end of every unit, I ask for feedback from my learners to gauge how they feel as a learner in our classroom, the different strategies we implemented during instruction, as well as reflecting on each other's behavior.  Sure some of the data is hard to swallow, but it's also very eye opening and reminds me why I am a teacher.