Chalking it up in Year 9!

My Year 9s were excited! They knew we were going out to create their chalk designs from the previous lesson and some still needed to design theirs.

The time we were to go out was on the board and they worked SO HARD! 

They were so proud to have their Mathematical 'artwork' on show in the Year 9 area and they put a LOT of effort into each of their drawings! 

They had 7 minutes to complete their design in class on paper and have me sign it off and only 7 minutes to pack up, take bags down to their eating area and construct their drawing with all working out! 

It was the topic of conversation between the 260 year 9 students when I was on play ground duty. Both my year 9 classes were showing others their drawings, playing handball and eating around it so no one else touched it! It even sparked discussion from the senior students when they walked through this area during their early finish!

Now to get COLOURED chalk! :)

Engaging Reflection & Goal Setting Activity

I got this idea from an excellent 'reach for the stars' activity I saw on Pinterest during the school holidays and adapted it for my students and for my own purpose. 

Firstly I quickly reviewed last terms Mathematics lessons and prompted them to think about their work ethic, homework, active questioning, book work, listening skills, behaviour and so on. I then asked them to think about four goals they could reach this term (not nearly impossibly goals)! 

After students had 1.5 minutes of reflection/ goal setting time. I then showed students my hand that I created with my own goals (I wish I had taken a picture of mine)! My name was on my thumb and on each of the fingers I wrote my own goals for the classroom and shared them with the class. 

Here are a few of my year 8 and 9 students goals for the term. 

This is what it looked like after my year 8 class completed this goal setting activity. So far each lesson I have reflected on the goals they made and encouraged them to always work towards reaching their goals.

I would love to hear ways in which YOU all focus on individual student goals and how do you track them?

P.S. - I told my students that during parent teacher interviews I will be bringing their hands with me so their parents can see the great goals their child has made! :)

Math Classroom organisation & decoration

As I said in my last post, I went into school on the Sunday before school started back.
Now this cupboard looked terrible with NOTHING in it but textbooks.

One teacher has the top shelf (because she only wants textbooks), so I took over the rest.

I have my year 9 textbooks (over 2 classes), then coloured paper, pencils, pens (50 pens for $2.60 Faber Castle too!), Math centre activities, rulers, reward container and reward certificates! I couldn't ask for a better space now!

Last year I had a problem with leaving pens/ pencils and other equipment out for other student access in a Math Centre set-up because other teachers didn't actively supervise and I ended up with NO rulers, NO pens and NO equipment, so this is padlocked and open every lesson I'm in there! :)

We also moved it more into the corner so there was more open space around the teacher desk! :) I put up my puff decorations (the pastels at the front and the bright ones at the back). I will dedicated a single blog post to creating these VERY soon! :)

On the trolley I have saved the old Year 8 textbooks that were going to be binned because of ACARA (Still VERY useful!!!!). I also found some of my posters from when I had year 6 and added them to the room to bring the class together as one even more.

You should have seen how bland and naked the back of this room looked before I took over! I've added my Math Word Wall - 43 Other words for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and equals which I colour coordinated for students easy comparison.

I also completed a fun reflection and goal setting task with my juniors which they LOVED! Some lovely pictures to come tomorrow night! :)

Classroom Puffiness - SNEAKPEAK!

A very, very, verryyyy, VVERRRYYY busy week so far with the first week back for Term 2. I went into school on Sunday with Scott and Max and they helped me move around some things and put some decorations up! 

Soooooo helpful.

What took 1.5 hours would have taken me over 3 hours to do by myself.

Here are some of the decorations I made to decorate with... more pics to come! 

I've had a parent interview already, marking University Math assignments/ games along with planning resources and assessment for this term! Running my final workshop at Uni tomorrow night and then just marking marking marking to do!

I'd LOVE to hear about ways you have decorated your room this year! :)

Classroom Design, Singing & Excel

I have just LOOOVEEEDD these first two weeks back!

I'm sure I wrote in another post that my year 8s are on a Data & Statistics unit and rather than just working through exercises from the textbook, I've been getting students to create a column graph by hand on grid paper, create them in Excel and then write a small paragraph describing their graph!

They have really loved going on the computer and the challenge of having a very strict time-line! We have 70 minute lessons, 10minute introduction/ review, 30 minute creating frequency tables and column graphs by hand, pack up and head to the library (where I book the laptops) and around 20 minutes to complete the graphs in Excel with correct axes labels and Headings! :) PPhhhewww!

Today we sung the Mean, Median and Mode Song (to Row Row Row your boat):

Mode, Mode, Modes the most

Average is the Mean,

Median, Median, Median, median,

The number in between.

I love using songs or catchy tunes to engage students in Maths and their favourite from today (they asked to loop the clip/ song for 15 minutes!) was "Mode, Median, Mean and Range by Gigi Shadid"!

My Year 8s even asked if they could perform it on assembly!! Yikess ;) 

My Classroom! :)

Other Classrooms

The above photo are three pictures of my classroom showing how I use the empty space in my classroom to represent what we're currently focusing on at the moment.

I have a year 8 board on the left and year 9 on the right to assist those lower level students who need continual prompts and won't look in their book.
To the left is a picture of what other classrooms look like! I have to say I love mine and so do my kiddies :)
I hope you are all having a great week!

Buuuusssyyy & Math Center

Before - I'd begun to put words up!

Oh what a busy busy week! We're leading into assessment being handed in and completing revision with my year 12 Math A's because they have their qcs test coming up and their exam after this! A QCS test, if you're not sure is the Queensland Core Skills test that all students in Queensland sit to give them a position on ability against all other students in Qld and then their school results for 5 our of  6 subjects contribute to their OP which is an Overall Position which gives them a number between 1-25 to apply to University.

On top of this I spent a lot of time preparing posters and math relation words and a Math Center for my classroom. This is for my yr 8 and 9 students (age 12-15) to use in the last 20 minutes of the lesson as some core skill improvement activities!

After - My panorama is a bit blurry, but its so much more exciting, engaging & bright now! :)

My year 8s absolutely loved the room, the pot plant and that it was so brightly decorated compared to how bland and typically 'high school' it was.

$20 for all 4 of these off ebay!

$10 for all of these including
the big baskets & pencil ones

I bought all 4 shelves off ebay for $20 total which I was really pleased about! They are in excellent condition too! I bought the dustpan & brush new for $1, the plastic containers new for $8 total and the container of pens & pencils I had bought and collected over time. I have spare books I have on the bottom shelf for those students who don't tel their parents they need a new book, those who have 'one book for every subject' and those who just forget theirs. It made one of my year 8s days when he didn't bring anything to school because he's having a tough time, and I told him at the back there's books and pens he can use. He asked if he could keep it and was so happy and worked the best he has ever worked when I said of course you can, but you need to show me your best effort today! :) Such little things can make a childs day.

I'm getting very excited now as I've sold 8 items on TpT which means I'm only 2 sales away from my flash sale for 36 hours with a surprise % off! :)

I promise that I'll post this weekend again and I'll be putting more resources up very soon especially some freebies!! :)

I'd love to see some photos of your room and how you've decorated your math area!