Bookwork, Expectations & Integers in use with Year 8!

I've just realised that this photo makes the day look muuuuccchhh more sunny than it actually was!

It was a miserable morning full of heavy rain, a sunny first break where I had to run trials for the Year 8 Girls Softball team, and then a rainy lunch time!

I'm very lucky to have some Year 9 girls who play club softball helping me out! :)

It's always so hard for the kids in their undercover area when some don't actually stay that dry in wet weather! :(

I thought I'd show you all this BIG blue ERASER/ RUBBER that I bought for my step-son Max as he's always misplacing his normal sized rubbers! Seriously, it's 15cm long and hhhuuuggeee! I love it :)

I know the one mistake a LOT of teachers make in high school, is not showing students bookwork expectations! How do I know this? I end up with students in year 9 with terribbblleee book work with no heading, margin or date!!

Students come from primary school and spending the whole day with one teacher and specialist teachers with all their books in the one room, to having four or more different teachers EVERY day with different books and expectations for EVERY teacher for each subject! How confusing for them!

My Year 8 Math Homework Books

I spend my first lesson with all my Math students (no matter the year level) focusing on my expectations of their book work. We use three books:

• Summary/ Theory - Which is the main note taking book that contains teacher examples.
• Exercise - Which is where students complete their textbook or worksheet work.
• Homework - Where students complete any homework task.

I always make sure that homework sheets are copied in colour! Why you ask? Doesn't it look more engaging and bright being in a colour? I know I'd rather do my homework if my book looked appealing! Some little ones even coloured each question or each letter to add additional colour! I love it!

A colourful HW book neatly in 'invisible' columns.

I've shown my students how to communicate what they're thinking rather than just give an answer. For a simple question like:

-6+9

=3

Doesn't require any 'thinking' or communication because it can just be solved. Whereas:

-5+-10

= -5-10

= -15

The signs I've coloured red is what students circle, then in the second step, re-write it so its more clear and organised, then the third step to solve! One example of this is below.



Circle, show how the signs change, re-write it and solve!

 I LOVE when they make a mistake, because their middle step is often correct (which means they can recieve some marks for it) but they made an error in the final step! Much more clear to see their 'thinking/ communication'!!

 

If your little ones are looking at integers, now or in the future, these Integer question cards are FREE, go over five levels and contain ANSWERS! :)

FREEBIE & Gazebo Decking

What a bussyyyy weekend!

Firstly, I created a Number Line FREEBIE for you all to use in either your Math Centers or to contact onto your students desks! The Number Line FREEBIE contains:

• -5 to 5
• -10 to 10
• -20 to 20
• Blank 11 spaces
• Blank 21 spaces

We had Max again here this weekend which was lovely, and he was so excited to be with us to nail in all the decking on the Gazebo!

After about 5 hours total or cutting, nailing and Bunnings trips, the decking was finished on the Gazebo.

Max calculated that of the 700 nails used in total on the deck (100 per 5 boards) that he nailed around 350 of them!

Pretty decent for an 8 year-old I think. 

Integers - Word Wall Freebie

I've decided to show you all a photo of one of my first word wall I used at the beginning of this year for my Year 8 Unit on Integers! I found that some of my students really struggled to understand adding and subtracting on a number line, and because this classroom is shared with other teachers I wasn't able to laminate a number line on the desk like I would have done, so I created a HUGE number line for their pin board. The border of this pin board is made from laminated off-cuts! :) Pretty and useful.

I printed and laminated key Mathematics words around the Integers topic and as you can see, below the images were either synonyms or students definitions of the word. I have done this for every topic since and have found it helps students understanding and saves them from asking questions that they can answer themself.

I have uploaded a much prettier version of these word wall words to TpT as a Freebie for you all!

Link - FREE TpT Integer Word Wall

I hope you have a wonderful day ahead of you! Here's a photo of some cutting up of laminating I have to do!  



Have a wonderful day! :)

First Blog & FREEBIES

Good Evening all you fellow Bloggers out there! I must admit, I'm actually a tad nervous as this is my first post here. I've had a TPT store called BaysideTeacher for around a month now and thought it necessary to create an interesting blog to go with it! :)

I thought I would begin with a very tasty topic- Look away now if you're hungry because this image won't help sorry!

I teach year 8 (12/13 year olds) up to year 12 (16/17 year olds) Mathematics and I've found that as we've developed relationships and grown as a class, I've really bonded with each and every student. I certainly admit that I don't have an extension class - more so the opposite, and that cupcakes are the way to a students heart when it comes to rewards.

This picture was a set of mini-cupcakes I gave out to my year 12 students on the day they handed in their third-last assignment last week!

In addition to these, in the last 5 minutes of my two year 9 exams last week I handed out one of these mini-cupcakes to all the students who sat the exam. It truly made a difference in these students lives, especially for those students who are D and E level even though they try so hard. This really is a nice reward for them :)

The downside, I baked four sets of 48 mini-cupcakes in the last week for students and a staff going away party! All cupcaked out! Phheww

To end my first post, I thought I'd link you through to two of my Freebies on TpT.

FREE Perimeter & Area Posters

&

FREE Integer Questions - 5 Levels