A Class Divided

 

It’s hard to believe the 2018-2019 school year has come to a close!  Our year was filled with moments of growing and learning, sharing and caring, and shining and leading.  I’ll be honest, when I first learned about sharing a room, I wasn’t too thrilled. After all, it could only be better than what I had encountered last school year, where I shared a room with 3 different people.  At one point our room looked like a storage room with everything scattered all over the tables and floor!  During the week, lots of love and care was spent putting our room together. I remember insisting that you bring something to make the room feel like yours, not just mine.  Your Big XII pennants, which this TCU girl absolutely loved, brought more peace than I ever realize I needed. Room 103 & Portable 12 soon became our room, where we each led by example for both our students and coworkers.  

With the excitement of a new school year and adjusting to our busy schedules,  a friendship began to bloom! A friendship that is built on faith, laughter and accountability and continues to flourish each and everyday.  

 As we both know, being in athletics is a time where we as coaches pour our energy into our athletes, helping them become both an athlete on the field and a leader in the classroom. From the beginning of football season, I saw a coach who was dedicated to molding our boys and not just in it for the W.  Watching you on the sideline, as you coached the boys, I saw a man who turned failures into teaching moments, as well as using successes as building blocks. You truly allowed the Lord to shine through your words and actions! 

Thank you for being a positive influence in our lives.  Thank you for teaching our kids to be good sports, to be good people and to treat others with respect.  Most of all, thank you for loving our kids, because that is what being a patient, kind, and positive coach is really all about.
                  
Thank you for giving everything you have to make our kids better, myself a better teacher and person,  and even more importantly for being a man of God, both on the field and in the classroom!

Taking over Elk Stadium

Today, our learners were challenged by Coach McElroy, head football coach at BHS, with determining how much it would cost to have a pizza party, if BHS makes it to the state championship.  

                          

As a group, we talked about what questions they had, which included how many pieces of pizza does each person get?  What toppings should we get on our pizza?  How many people can Elk Stadium hold?  Are there any coupons or discounts if we buy a large amount of pizza? 

Now that each group was thinking, early on a Saturday morning, we gave them a list of pizza prices from Papa John's.  As luck would have it, some groups chose to compare the prices of various pizza places to ensure we had the best deal!  Learners were researching the amount of seats in Elk Stadium as well as the top 3 favorite pizza toppings.  

Talk about engaged learners!  Our two hours together flew by as we determined that each person would get 2 pieces of pizza.  Based on their research we decided it would be best to buy a combination of cheese, pepperoni and sausage.  As we did the calculations, the cost of feeding 7,500 people was almost $20,000 which shocked our 7th graders.  When they determined they would need to tip their drive almost $3,000, they couldn't believe it!  

Student-Led Discussions

                                     

One of our goals, as a 7th grade math team, was to work on meaningful student-led discussions.  Our district coordinator, who meets with us weekly, set up the ipad on a swivel and away we went with recording the learning in our classrooms.  At first, our learners were camera shy, which we were shocked by!  After all, these are the kids who love Facetiming, making their own Tick Tock videos and Snapchat filters. 

After some modeling by the teachers, learners were given practice problems and bounce cards to practice in class.  You may ask what a bounce card is.  It's basically a list of question stems that guide the learner's thinking.  I loved walking around our room, listening to their mathematical reasoning and justification.  Their confidence was definitely increasing the more we practiced. 

   

Once learners became comfortable in our classroom, they were given 5 3D figures and asked to describe if a prism or pyramid was drawn.  As a class, we created a thinking map of all the academic vocabulary we use to describe both a pyramid and prism, as well as reviewing good questioning techniques. 


Learners eagerly accepted the challenge of describing what 3D figure their group was given!  We had groups working in the breakout rooms, as well as the learning commons.  I think what I loved most about this learning experience is how excited 7th graders were about geometry.  I heard one young man say, "I feel like I'm in college!"  Who knew an activity that seems so simple, could create such a meaningful experience for our learners. 

Turning 40 in Middle School

As many know, birthdays are a huge deal in our family, so it was only right to celebrate turning 40 with some of Hughes Huskies during Saturday tutoring!  Our 7th graders were challenged with the tasks of determining how much icing each cake would require, how many drops of food coloring to create the desired color of icing, the cost of how much it cost to ice the cake per square centimeter, and how big each letter could be, in order for the top of the cake to have a border.  The thinking and excitement that was sparked on a Saturday morning, was one of the best gifts a teacher could ask for!  

We first started with the task of determining how much icing we would need to cover our 2 tiered cake.  It was interesting to watch our learners tackle this problem because some just measured, while others drew nets and determined the composite area of the figure.  Once of the joys that comes with Saturday tutoring is that it's all of our kids, of various levels, collaborating together to determine their solutions. 

  

Once we figured out the surface area of the cake, it was time to create my favorite color of icing...turquoise!  Learners used both equivalent fractions and ratio tables to determine how many drops of blue and green we would need.                               

To say our learners were engaged is an understatement!  They absolutely loved creating & enjoying this birthday cake.  An extension onto this activity was for the learners to determine how many square centimeters each letter would take up on the cake.  As you can see, our 7th graders did a fabulous job of creating the best birthday cake, a teacher could ask for!