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! :)

TpT Sunday SUPER Sale up to 28% off!!!!

THIS Sunday TpT is having a HUUUGGEE Super Sunday SALE!

My WHOLE store will be discounted by 20%, PLUS when you enter TpT's promo code 'SUPER' at checkout, you will recieve an additional 8%!

A great excuse to stock up on some great items you have on your wishlist or one you've been keeping your eye on! 

*Promo Code "SUPER" Expires 02/03/13 Midnight Hawaii-time*

The COMPLETE Perimeter, Area & Volume Collection

This complete collection contains over 174 pages and at least 7 Math Centre resources (with various levels and activities in each centre) to use in your classroom.

To make for an easier unit download, I have included the FREE Math Posters, FREE Perimeter, Area & Volume Wordwall, Free Dominoes and for FREE for you, Math Word Wall!!!!

This would all cost $27.25 to buy individually, but  20% off for bulk purchase makes it $21.80! Over $5 savings!

See the links for more detailed information due to the number of activities included.

Perimeter, Area & Volume Math Center Cards #2 - Valentines Day & Regular theme

Circumference & Area of Circles - 8 worksheets with Answers

Math Center Volume of Prisms - Rotation Cards

Perimeter, Area & Volume Math Center Cards #1

Christmas Perimeter Activity Cards

I Have, Who Has - Area of Square & Rectangle

Unit Conversion, Perimeter & Area Pack

FREE - Perimeter & Area Posters - A4 or A3

FREE - Perimeter, Area & Volume Word Wall - 20 words

FREE - Aussie Area Dominoes - Square, Rectangle & Triangle

Math Word Wall - Other words for....

Distributive Law Math Centres

This very bright and engaging distributive law math centre is ready to just print, laminate and use! There are 272 question cards over 5 levels! 

Easy to read instructions and answer keys provided for all activities. One landscape and one portrait recording sheet provided for each of the 5 levels.

It also comes with a game board which can be used as five separate leveled games or as one large game board with all the cards in use!

See thumbnails and preview for more detailed information due to the number of pages included.

Distributive Law Word Wall contains 18 word walls and 6 blank word walls.

For a short time this Math Centre is 20% off!

I look forward to using it for my second unit of the year! It's taken some time to put together with aaalllllll (272) of the question cards aaaannndddd answers, so it's been two weeks in the making around school, work and holidays!

Gazebo, MAJOR Storms & Tornado's in Australia!? WhAt!?!?

Our Gazebo is finally complete!

So this is the COMPLETED & furnished Gazebo we finished building over the holidays! 

After 3.5 months of working during the holidays, after school, then over the Christmas break, voooolllaaaaaaa! :)

Apart from the power lead over the roof from screwing the iron sheets down, and the birdbath without its top and other such picky things, we're so pleased with it! 

So this was completed 1 week ago. The weather since then has been rainy, clouds, storms, rain.... :( AND THEN.... I wake up to THIS this morning!

Not my photo but bayside

"Qld again in grip of deadly flood disaster", "Five tornadoes leave trail of destruction" and "Defence force at Qld's disposal: Swan" to say the least...

TORNADO... in Australia!? In Queensland!? Talk about a rarity, and to think that 2 years ago at this time we had the terrible floods that took so many lives unexpectedly, and flooded so many areas of Queensland from Toowoomba to Brisbane City.

It stopped raining for 10 min today!

Now this!!!!! It's been broadcast on TV 24/7 with full coverage since I woke up this morning, so they're really on the ball with plans to look after everyone and evacuate on time! Because we're located so close to the bayside ourselves, we're getting some VERY strong wind gusts hitting the house/ windows, so I'm hoping it holds out!! 59 to 66 KNOTS winnndddddddddd here! 116km/h or 72mph

AND to think we go back to school on Tuesday... Today is Sunday! We're awaiting EducationQueensland announcements Monday afternoon to let us know what schools will be returning and others closed. What a stressful start to the school year for students, parents, school and teachers alike!!

Perimeter, Area & Volume Activity Cards - Valentine's Day & Regular Themes!!

I've been lucky enough to have some time on my hands to complete a second set of cards around perimeter, area and volume!

Unlike the last set I created, Perimeter, Area & Volume Math Center Cards #1 has three sets of 12 cards, this set has three sets of 16 cards with an increased difficulty level.
ALSO 20% off this item for a little while! :)

There are two themes to this set so you can use them all year round! A Valentines Day theme and a Regular theme. All answers are provided to the cards to make student checking much easier!

It seems I will have more laminating to do now! *I secretly LOVE laminating!!* :)

FREE Probability Math Centre/er

I've finished a probability FREEBIE for you all tonight! It's a multilevel Math Centre waiting just for you to print and laminate (we all have a laminating addiction... admit it! :) )

I've made some changes to this unit and also added more to my Probability Unit on TpT!

Easy to read instructions and answer keys provided for all activities!

Included in this freebie is: 

-Blank Word Walls for your students to add their own probability words (Excellent to give students ownership of their learning!)

-Probability Shapes Level 1 - __out of __ (16 Questions)

-Probability Shapes Level 2 - Writing as a fraction (16 Questions)

-Probability Items Level 3 Worksheet - Writing as a fraction and simplifying (10 Questions )

It's about to hit midnight here and we go back to school in just over a week! I'm in denial! I know I am because I wouldn't be up this late otherwise! I need to get back into the 'school' routine ASAP!

Finally finished NEW Data Unit 20% OFF!

This unit has taken a lot of time to put together and I'm so pleased I'll have it ready for the new school year! :) So far I am teaching year 8 and 9's with 11 and 12 PVM, but if I get my Day 8 transfer, I will be teaching year 7's!
Awesomely this data unit will be able to be used with any of these year levels/ classes!
This Data Unit is 20% off on in TpT Store and I will upload it very soon to TeachersNotebook!

It includes:

• 16 word walls with 8 blanks, 6 domino mean, median, mode & range math centres over 2 levels
• 8 Math Centre A4 page Worksheets
• 1 x Math Game with three different game boards to choose from with 132 cards (33 mean, 33 median, 33 mode, 33 range.

In Australia, we're all getting ready to go back to school in the next two weeks! TWO WEEKS!

WHERE did those HOLIDAYS go!?

They allllwayyysss FLLLLYYYYYYYYYY by, but I guess that means we've enjoyed the holidays to make them fly! :)

Our school voted on the student free days to be Wednesday, Thursday & Friday from 9am-4pm, so we're back in 11 days!

The kids don't come back until Tuesday 29th January because Monday is Australia Day's public holiday in lieu of because the public holiday is on the Saturday!

Between now and then we have a roof of a Gazebo to build, finish renovating downstairs, make a new FREEBIE and prepare for the new school year!

Any FREEBIE ideas!? :) 

Teaching Math with Meaning GIVEAWAY 3 x $10 TpT vouchers

The lovely Alison from Teaching Math with Meaning is giving away THREE, yes 3 x $10 TpT Gift Certificates! 

Alison is also a fellow 'Aussie' and is also addicted to Maths, so I cannot help but promote this awesome giveaway & SALE.

Alison is also having a 20% off sale from the 3rd to 6th January at her TpT Store! 

I will blog again very soon as now having over 100 + Blog followers, 100+ TpT followers and 100+ TpT feedback given, it's time to celebrate somehow! :)

Why I've been MIA!

So this is it!....

The reason I've been missing in action from this Blog, TpT and TeachersNotebook is due to building our gazebo and re-landscaping the gardens around it!

It took around 3 months, and without a roof still, it's nearrrllyyy done :)

Have a wonderful  and safe Christmas everyone!I've nearly finished my Mean, Median, Mode & Range bulk pack!~ After Christmas. :)

MIA & a NEW Item on Scientific Notation!

My goodness.... After finishing school 5 days ago and all the busy work around reporting and the last two weeks or school, I've neglected my blog! I'm so sorry!

I thought I would do a small post on an item I created recently on Scientific Notation!

Nothing has ever been fun abut learning scientific notation, expanded form or the basic numeral, so I thought it would be a great idea to create a resource for this!
As usual, I've included a theme specific word wall with blanks, three help cards with different examples, three different sets of domino cards and three different, fun & engaging board games with cards!

We received our timetables for next year and (so far) I am teaching Year 8, 2 x Year 9s, 11 PVM and 12 PVM!!

I would much prefer to only teach year 8 or year 8 and 9, but our school puts non-math qualified teachers on year 8 because its 'easier' to teach than year 11 or 12 PVM! :( This makes me so sad for those children.

Earlier in the year I put in a transfer to move to a high school that is accepting year 7's (our school is not) and may find out up to Day 8 if I do or don't have a transfer, so created this (and future) resources for that purpose! 

Talk about nervous... Working 8 days at my school and potentially finding out that I may not be there for day 9! Needless to say, I've cleaned out my room, packed everything in boxes, and if I don't get a transfer, it'll be easy enough to unpack =\

Back to creating my Mean, Median, Mode & Range resource! :)

TpT Cyber Monday & Bonus Tuesday SALE - UpTO 28% Off

These last few weeks have been packed with assessment, marking & reporting! Report cards aren't due until  11th December (phhewwww) but we have two exams still (around 100 papers to mark) to be marked, profiled & reported on! 

I am however, very excited to say that I am participating in TpT's Cyber Monday & Bonus Tuesday SALE.

I'm offering 20% off store-wide which means you will be able to access 28% off my store Monday & Tuesday ONLY!

I hope to see you shopping over these days! :) Thank you for your support & encouragement as always!

NEW Rounding Math Center - 20% Off!

Hoooollllyyy busy = Understatement....... I have to say that finally year 12  rankings and verification are now COMPLETE! :) I'm very pleased to say that I have 5 out of my 23 students on a VHA this year! Now just year 8 and 9 assessment to go plus reports due in 2 weeks! 

The Two-digit Rounding Winter Math Centre is super easy and ready to use! All activities have instructions and three have recording sheets. 

This unit contains:

• 48 Flash Cards
• 2 sets of Rounding Dominoes (Instructions included)
• Dice Rounding (Instructions and Recording Sheet included)
• Spinner Rounding (Instructions and Recording Sheet included)
• 2 Rounding Worksheets (Instructions and Recording Sheet included)

I have a lot of other Rounding Items on TpT here!

I look forward to the following 4, well 3 weeks with my classes! Our final week is an 'alternative week' where we do 'engaging and interesting literacy and numeracy' activities! Needless to say the number of students who attend it less than 20% of year 8 and 9s!  :( 

My FIRST November Currently!

I couldn't be more excited to participate in my first Currently after seeing these appear everywhere in September and October and have no idea where they came from and how the word spread around!!!

To say the least, I'm excited, excited, excited!! I'm so excited to say that I've found out the beautiful Farley from the Oh' Boy 4th Grade is the person to look for! :) 

My husband and I just LOVE Big Band Theory and seem to re-watch the show from season 1 until we're stuck back at the end! :)

We are finishing off our Gazebo area tomorrow (apart from the roof to still go) and will have a beautiful garden bed around the area! Will post photos soon!
Even though I'm tired, I still cannot push myself to get to bed earlier, its just so catchy watching silly shows on TV until I'm so tired I cannot be bothered to move! 

NEW Probability Unit

I've finally finished Uni (Master of Education half complete!!!) for this semester and have had some time last night to complete my Probability Unit! It's 20% off for a little while too! :)

The unit has 20 probability word walls to display around your room with the 7 activities being very engaging, colourful and multilevel  for students. They can be laminated and used as Math Centres or photocopied in grayscale and used as worksheets!

Level 1 and 2 students write as ___ out of ___ and level 3 students write as a fraction and simplify where possible.

Your little ones will be  ready to roll! Easy to read instructions with examples and answers included for all! 

I cannot wait to spend more time on my resources now I will have the time! I cannot believe it's week 5 this week already! My year 12's are finished at the end of week 6! Time is flying...