Sara(h) Week Activities (Day 3)
Let's get to today's Blaugust topic.
Since today's the 13th, here's the thirteenth topic from Shelli's old 2019 list:
- Math Makeover - Take a traditional question/problem to solve and make it better.
Hmm -- this is a tricky one. I've seen teachers do something like this before -- take a question and make it into a group activity, or Desmos-ize it. But I've never done anything like that before. The closest might be when I posted special Geometry activities on the old blog, but I choose not to post any today to satisfy today's Blaugust prompt. Who knows -- maybe I'll have the opportunity to create such an activity this year.
Instead, today I have two more opening week activities prepared for all classes -- but these aren't really beefed-up versions of traditional questions. Both projects come from the Sara(h) blogs.
But before the new activities, I continue the Vanderwerf name tents. Today's prompt is "What is your family like?" I tell the students about the girl from my long-term assignment -- the one I meet a few months later and discover that she's a triplet. I want to avoid this happening again, and so I use the name tents to learn more about the students' families right now.
The first new activity for today is a Sara Vanderwerf classic -- 100 Numbers:
https://www.saravanderwerf.com/100-numbers-to-get-students-talking/
According to Vanderwerf, this is a Day 3 activity -- and hey, today really is Day 3 (since my first day of school was Day 2).
In some classes, the students don't figure out the secret pattern. I give them a hint by telling them about an episode of Mathnet (Square One TV) called the "Case of the Dirty Money" -- for some reason, dump trucks numbered 2, 6, 10 are stolen from a dig site. It turns out that the dig site is divided into quadrants, and Quadrant 2 was where a million dollars in stolen money was once buried. The thief successfully digs up the money, but is caught before he can escape with it.
But one pair of guys in fourth period figures out the pattern quickly. On their second attempt, they're already dividing up the page into quadrants. And on the third attempt (after telling others of the pattern), they make it all the way from 1 to 100 with time to spare! A few other strong groups make it into the 80's after learning about the pattern.
There's one more thing I wish to say about this activity. Vanderwerf intends for teachers to take pictures of the students as they work on hard this assignment, but I don't have a smartphone. But in fourth period, a student arrives from the office. This is right before I start the activity for the last time (after all the kids know what the pattern is). I hold up beginning the timer in order to talk to the girl, only to find out that she's been sent from the office to take pictures. I start the timer and the girl takes the pics. If only I could have known why she's visiting my room, I could have started the timer and had her take the pics without the students even knowing it (just as Vanderwerf intends).
The other activity comes from Sarah Carter -- Master Designer:
https://mathequalslove.net/master-designer/
While this activity goes well in most periods, fourth period struggles. It's because this class is my largest, with sixteen students. In all classes, I demonstrate the activity by being the first Master Designer and let the students figure out my first design. I kept allowing the students to ask me questions, and I keep answering them. By the time someone has matched my design, there are only a few minutes left, so there's no time for them to be Master Designers in their own groups.
Near the end of class, a new student arrives, becoming the seventeenth student in this class. While the other students work on their exit passes ("Triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number _____."), I tell him about the activities he missed. He tells me that his English teacher has also done name tents. So I guess Vanderwerf's original idea has expanded beyond math teachers.
On the other hand, my smallest class, first period, still has just a single student. This should not last -- it's possible that he will be switched to my fifth period general Stats class. This means that I'd be given a new class to teach -- a fourth prep. Well, I knew that four preps are possible at such a small school.
In all classes I tell the students my third and fourth resolutions. These are "3. We remember math like riding a bicycle," and "4. We need to inflate the wheels of our bike" (the math in our working memory).
By the way, I tweeted with Shelli after finding out that I'm teaching Stats now. She replies that no, she isn't teaching Stats this year. (Still, I might be able to use old Shelli posts as resources for Stats.)
Instead, the top Stats teacher on the MTBoS is now one of the Sara(h)s -- Carter, that is:
https://mathequalslove.net/first-day-of-school-activities-2021/
A handful of students always realize that they don’t need any more math classes to graduate, so they end up dropping my class. This year I am teaching Pre-Calculus (4 sections) and Statistics (2 sections).
And in fact, Carter wrote an interesting tweet last week:
At the time she tweeted this, I ignored her because I didn't teach Stats yet. Now suddenly, this tweet becomes very relevant to me. Perhaps I might consider doing something like it this year as well.
I plan on doing one more opening week activity on Monday. It will be the first of the monthly minimum days (and hence I'll do "A Day in the Life" that day). Then the block schedule begins on Tuesday -- by then, I need to start on actual content.
But even as Sara(h) week ends, at least one Sarah may continue to be relevant to me this year. If I ever hear more about Carter's scrapbook idea, I might end up using it the entire year.
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