Our school currently uses an 8-day rotating block schedule. That means that I get to see each class at four different times of the day (e.g. 1st Block, 2nd Block, 3rd Block after lunch, end of the day 4th Block) in an 8-day cycle. I have two prep period in the morning, and it is very nice!
Planning for my Math 8+ class is fun yet challenging. It is an accelerated class covering most of the 8th Grade CCSS Math and Integrated Math 1 standards. That means that there are some general framework to plan from, and tons of curricular freedom. So far, most of my planning time is allocated to this course. I felt good about using Squares, Areas, and The Pythagorean Theorem [CrazyMathTeacherLady] to launch the unit on Real Numbers and Pythagorean Theorem. Students were able to draw squares with areas that are perfect squares. They did well on square with an area of 2, but starting to struggle with square with an area of 5, 10, 13, etc. I hope that this create a need to find a way (hint: Pythagorean Theorem) that is helpful!
A lot of rich math tasks arises from the task. We talked about the relationship between square and square root (area and length), square root approximation, perfect square (x+y)^2. I’m excited to uncover all these topics with my students over the next few weeks.
For my Math 7 class, I did the Toothpick Square activity from YouCubed. Today is the day where I want to establish our working Math definition, that is “Math is a study of Patterns!” I am curious to see how this definition would influence my students’ perception of math and how they engage with it over the year. I can’t wait to put this poster up after my two other classes tomorrow!
Math in the Middle World 