10 Pin Math Linky!

This week I'm linking up with Askley from Just Reed in her 'Ten Pin Linky'! All about math ideas and I just LOVE IT! :)

Below I have 10 of my favourite Pinterest Pins related only to Maths! They are in no particular order, but I hope it gives you some awesome ideas for next term or next year! :)

These are my favourite pins:

1. A fun visual and attractive way of presenting equivalent fractions! A fabulous idea and one I can't wait to get my students to create. 

2. I just love how Dianna Jump has used the students faces to create their class graph! It really adds ownership and meaning to class work :)

3. Here is access to a whole lot of FREE Greg Tang Math books for students! What an amazing resources I wish we all had access to. 

4. Relating perimeter and area in a graphical way! Completely awesome and covering three concepts at once :)

5. Ahhh the good old Pringles container! I bought one the other day to create these... I can't believe I can no longer fit my hand down the container easily! I wonder if they've shrunk?

6. We don't really celebrate Halloween here in Australia, but I am KEEN to carve this and bring it into school. Only drawback is my classroom isn't able to be darkened much so it will just be for looks and not much light coming from it :(

7. oOOo I want want want WANT this clock for our classroom! Would be great to get students to design/ create questions to suit a clock for the classroom. Clocks are easy to make too! 

8. I can't EVER remember making one of these at school, but I remember other kids being able to! I can't wait to do this activity with my year 8 and 9s when we begin their data unit in a weeks time! :)

9.More younger children's Math related books/ stories that I would LOVE to get my hands on! :)

10. I just love this type of question! I will show my year 9s this and wait to see the 'oh that's pathetic' look :) 

I can't wait to look through some of the other Math pin linky posts! More ideas for the new term :)

Engaging & Creative - Area of Special Quadrilaterals

I must admit, I have the most BEAUTIFUL Year 8 students who are motivated, work well, ask questions and the majority of them are self-driven. 

I really wanted to engage not only MY class in their work, but the rest of the Year 8 cohort, so I thought... Why not get permission to 'chalk up' their Year 8 eating/ sitting area so ALL Year 8 students can see what they're studying in Mathematics at the present time! 

Well the Year 8 Deputy LOVED the idea and the cleaners are happy to leave their designs around for a week or so until they look messy and then just hose them off! 

The guidelines: 

• Any simple shape (square, rectangle, triangle) and special quadrilateral could be used.
• It must be used in a creative picture as long as there were measurements on their picture.
• It needed to be large enough to easily see
• The area of one shape must be calculated somewhere near the image with full working out. 

I had some VERY creative kids (I say kids but they are all 13!!) who just LOVED this task! These are just three of the photos so I don't clutter this post too much. I am doing the same thing this coming week with more Year 8 work in their area and work in the Year 9 area on Pythagoras and Trigonometry so look out for this post later in the week. 

What type of 'chalk' or painting tasks have you done with your class? I'd love to hear about the/ see some pictures! 

On a short note, it's Max's 9th Birthday this weekend and he was so excited to get his Ju Jitsu uniform AND a sporting award from Sensei which he worked so hard to recieve! 

A busy night ahead of us making a RockClimbing cake, cupcakes and party food for tomorrow! :)

Five for Friday

This Friday I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for 5 for Friday! Make sure you hop on over to her blog to link on up and post your Five. 

1 - Work Ethic Success! We've begun using MathsOnline as a tool for issuing some student homework. This is generally what each week looks like for my year 8 homework. Of the 4 blanks, two do theirs on paper, one has left and the other cherub doesn't do any homework. I am SO proud of their continual efforts and I can only hope that my year 9s begin to show such a strong commitment to work. 

2 - Max had his second Sanitarium Tryathlon on Sunday (19th May) and absolutely LOVED every part of it! It's all about giving it a go, TRYing their best and having a fantastic fun filled day. He loved in that much he wants to do a 'real' kids triathlon in December :)

3 - Today we had out school Athletics day and this is a picture from our school twitter page of some year 8 students. It was a fantastic day and the weather was perfect until the last 30minutes... then the sky opened and it rained... and rained... so everyone ended up in the hall doing the Nutbush, Macarena and Gangmanstyle until the bell went! I missed most of the day as I was on 'bubbler' duty for 3 out of the 6 hours :( 

4 - I am trying to find time to put my thesis proposal together! If only there were more hours in a day. It's on the impact of parental involvement on student achievement with Year 8 and 9 students at the school I am presently teaching at. Hoping to have it ready to submit in the next week :)

5 - I am SO thankful I bought three new pairs of shoes last week! TWO of them are boots. These boots are vinyl but keep my legs soooooo warm, my others are shorter leather boots and my third pair and maroon dress shoes which I can't wait to wear later in the year. 

Now don't forget to head on over to  Doodle Bugs Teaching to link up your 5 for Friday and check out others! 

About time I head to bed here in Australia ready for a Saturday full of marking!

 

MEGA Maths Teacher Appreciation Sale on TPT

Catch yourself a bargain with up to 28% off all of the items in my TpT store!

Maths, Maths anything maths... Worksheets... Game boards.. Cards... Math Centers... Everything you can imagine and items you've wishlisted! :)

This is to say THANK YOU to all the amazing teachers out there and to all of those who have supported my store.

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! :)

500 Follower Giveaway worth OVER $300!

I've linked up with Patti from A Series of 3rd Grade Events as she celebrates 500 followers!

What a great way to celebrate but to GIVEAWAY over $300 worth of TpT items!

There are THREE different Rafflecopters' to enter!!!!

PreK to 2nd

27 Great Prizes from my friends @TpT + an item of your choice from my TpT store!

3rd to 5th

40 Great Prizes from my friends @TpT + an item of your choice form my TpT store!

6th ++

12 Great Prizes from my friends @TpT + an item of your choice form my TpT store!



FREEBIE! Rounding to 5c MathCenters

It has been a while since I posted a FREEBIE, so here it is!!!

Rounding to the nearest 5cents just in time for Easter!

This FREEBIE contains:

12 x Rounding to 5c domino cards

2 x Rounding to 5c Matching Worksheets

with instructions and answer keys.

This FREEBIE gives a snippet of my much larger 88 page Rounding to 5c Unit I created in Easter and Regular Theme.

I have 28 Year 8 homework books to mark now! I managed to mark my Year 8s spelling test during lunch on Friday after they sat it, and some outstanding results.

Over and out for now (and a few days too) because this is my week! AAAARRRrrgggghhhhh

Monday: Staff meeting 3-4pm

Tuesday: School PD 3-5pm

Wednesday: 3-4pm School Math tutoring

Thursday: 1-4pm PVM PD, 5-7 Griffith Tutorials

Friday: 6-8:30 Max's Swimming Club Night

Work 'Uniform' and BARGAIN Award Ticket Cards

I am a full time Mathematics teacher, but I also take Year 8 girls Softball for Tuesday afternoon sport! Such a stunning group of girls who have done EVERYTHING they can to ensure I am comfortable with all the rules and calls! :)

The last three years I've always had 'recreational sport' which is for students who don't want to play a team sport, don't make it into a team or don't like sport! This is ssssooooo different!

All HPE teachers and afternoon sport teachers were offered a school 'work shirt'. I must say I LOVE wearing a consistant uniform every Tuesday that students recognise but also other schools can easily recognise!

In addition to this, I found these 'ticket awards' at K-Mart where they had discounted them from $2.50 down to $1! Needless to say I have 15 packets now! :)

I'm looking forward to using them along with my new container of stationary rewards! :) I will put a photo of this up soon! :)

Valentines Day in Maths - PHOTOS

After yesterdays blog post about the Valentines Day Math Activities I was going to do with my years 9s, I thought I would upload some photos of their work!

They really enjoyed being given the opportunity to not only work in pairs, but to be a part of the Year 9 Math wall and demonstrating ownership and pride in their understanding and work!

There were so many students helping others who had missed some lessons and needed some guidance, along with two students who managed to create two seperate hands rather than attached hands with a heart in the middle! lol

Valentines Day in Maths! Middle and High School



At my High School, apart from selling and having roses delivered to students (fake ones!), we don't seem to cover Valentines Day like its covered in Primary School.

SsssoooOooOoooOooooooo... I'm going to change that!

I saw this AMAZING idea somewhere where you fold a piece of A4 paper in half, place your hand so that your thumb and index finger touch the creased side and trace!

I made the mistake on my first one below to place my thumb straight which means your heart looks a little sad! You will have to get your little ones to bend their thumb a bit to make more of a heart shape!

I am using these with both my Year 9s tomorrow. They are going to work in pairs to complete a table, graph and determine the rule based on a rate I give them.

I created this example for students and I will put them up on their Year 9 Bulletin Board when they finish!

I know I will hear from them "I heart Maths",but that is what I'm hoping for!

DIY Bulletin Board Borders & Template



Template traced and cut out!

Since it's three weeks into the first term, and typical HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOMS are COMPLETELY, UTTERLY, TERRIBLY, bland... boring... mind numbing... PLAIN!

I didn't think of buying any bulletin board borders over the break and wanted to brighten up the room sooner rather than later! :)

I created a template and used some of our 80cm wide coloured cardboard (we only had pink!!!!) but this is the finished product!

This looks very peach coloured, but it's pink! Much better though :)

If you CLICK on either of the template images below (Or HERE and HERE) you can download them as two seperate images from google docs, print them onto an A4 page and trace them onto your own cardboard! A great item to laminate and re-use year after year!