Day 33
We started with more Estimation 180. They are doing very well with them and seem to be enjoying starting the class this way. We did days 16 - 20 today. I also find it helps avoid issues with students who arrive late. They join in, not having missed any instructions or the beginning of an activity.
Next, High Fives!
Here is the premise:
I had one student come up as the first player. (He did not high-five himself.) A second student came up and high-fived the first. 1 high-five. A third player came up and high-fived both other players so there had been a total of 2 + 1 = 3 high fives. A fourth player high-fived the other three for a total of 3 + 3 = 6 players. And so on.
As a class, we filled in a table of values then students made a scatter plot by hand. Next, they entered the data in the graphing calculator and plotted it, then performed a quadratic regression. Most figured out that they needed a quadratic, not linear, regression as the data curved. The equation they got allowed them to answer this question:
Other than the issue of the regression equation containing 1E-13 in it (argh!), they did really well and there were stickers all around!
The next problem looked like this:
Remarkably no one commented that this was the same question that was on the last test. Not sure what to make of that! Again, they created a scatter plot, entered the data in the graphing calculator, performed a quadratic regression and used the equation to answer the question.
The next one was similar:
And the process for answering the question was the same.
The last one was this:
Other than a student asking why anyone would cut their pizza that way, they came up with the data quite easily and are excellent as using the graphing calculator as a tool to help them see the data and extrapolate.
A few students got through all four problems, where others were still on the second question at the end of the period. They will continue working on these questions tomorrow and those that finished (finish) will play Frogs!
Day 32
Estimation 180! They are totally into this now. I am aware that it is because they consider it fun, not work but they seem to be missing the fact that it is helping improve their number sense. We did day 9 - day 15 today, as some were very easy. Most of the class got day 10 perfect, a lot also got day 11 and day 12 perfect. Day 13 made us wonder who eats Cheese Balls (I have never seen them in Canada), but also allowed me to talk about using serving size to come up with Andrew's answer. Day 14 surprised me as I have taken a lot of strips of staples out over the years. Day 15 made no sense to me. If there are 24 strips of staples in a pack, each containing 210 staples, shouldn't there be 5040 staples in a box?
Then we continued with the spaghettini bridges handout. Some said they didn't know how to interpret their equations. When I asked them what the numbers meant they told me (correctly) so they seem to understand more than they realize. They did well answering the questions that followed, albeit slowly. Some needed help with the graphing calculators and many had trouble finding the number of spaghettini that would support a given number of pennies. There was an additional handout that provided them with data to analyze and some got through that too.
Tomorrow we move on.
Day 31
We started with more Estimation 180 - days 5- 8. We talked a little about really high guesses and really low guesses as the range of guesses was large for day 7. I think it is amazing how close they are getting to the correct answer though. Lots of correct answers for day 5, one correct for day 6, one off by 5 for day 7 and one correct for day 8. They seem to be enjoying this (because of the lollipops and that we "aren't doing math" - huh?).
Next we went through the questions on the back of the Spaghetti Bridges handout. Making sense of the equation and working with some algebra.
Then they made spaghettini bridges - working in groups of four but collecting data in pairs to speed up the process. There was much spaghettini on the floor so the broom I bought for my classroom came in handy again. As this was the second round of this activity, they worked well, got good data, were able to create their scatter plots and come up with equations for the line of best fit much more independently. A good way to end the week.
Day 30
Tomorrow, all the grade 10s will be taking the Literacy Test. Today, we did a "dry run" to make sure they the students knew which room to go to and they got to listen to a script and ask questions about logistics. This was all happening at 10:20 so trying to keep my students focused on math from 9:30 until 10:20 was quite a challenge.
We started the class with some Estimation 180. We had done Day 1 a while back so we looked at Mr. Stadel's height again before continuing with Day 2 where we have to estimate Mrs. Stadel's height given that she is standing next to Andrew. This time all of my students came up with a guess, and they were all reasonable guesses. One even got it right and earned a lollipop! We worked through converting the height from feet and inches to centimeters. Then we did Day 3 which is estimating Mr. Stadel's son's height. The guesses were okay, although some were really small, but one was perfect (another lollipop). I asked if they wanted to do another one and they did (I think the lollipops may have been a factor) so we looked at Day 4 Mr. Stadel and the Lampost:
If my students didn't already think I was nuts (about math) then they do now. I told them how great this picture was and that we would be using it as practice for similar triangles. They didn't seem to share my enthusiasm... hmmmm... Anyway, we did our estimation and two students got within 1 inch of the correct answer so they both got lollipops. I will be continuing with Estimation 180. (Someone yell at me if I don't blog that I've done more!)
They worked on the spaghetti bridge handout from yesterday and all got equations (linear regression) but most had a hard time interpreting those equations. We took it up and this is what it looked like:
Some may have started the questions on the back of the sheet, but not many. It was like someone kept yelling "Squirrel!" today!
At 10:20 I headed out to Portable 2 with some of my students (and some from other classes) only to find that they were putting down a new floor in portable 2 and we could not go in. So we stood outside in the cold (it was very cold this morning) while I took attendance and then we went back into the school building as a group. I explained the procedure for tomorrow to them (in the hallway) and read them the script. So tomorrow they will be reading and writing and I will be supervising so there will be no blog post. I would definitely rather be teaching!
I got a little behind with my blogging...
Day 26
Test day! They did a great job. It was fantastic to see some of them using the manipulatives (pattern blocks & pennies) during the test. They worked really well - I think knowing that they could have more time the following day took away a lot of anxiety. I had told them that the number one rule was that they were not allowed to leave any question blank and they followed it well. Some needed prompting to get going with a question or two. I wrote in pink pen what prompts I provided and took that into account when I marked the tests.
I got to meet some of my students' parents that afternoon/evening which is always interesting. Nice kids, nice parents, what can I say?
Day 27
Test day, part 2 for them and PD for me. I spent the day with @AlexOverwijk and Sherri Walker planning for the next couple of months of this course. It was a great day for me as we got a lot accomplished.
My students finished up their tests (or started if they were absent the previous day) and then worked on solving systems by graphing equations in y = mx + b form.
Day 28
This was a crazy day as I had some finishing up their test, some who needed to work on a question from the test as I deemed that they had not done enough, and the rest continuing to work on solving systems by graphing. It was a zoo. I had thought I would do an Estimation 180 question with them but didn't. At times I feel like I am letting myself (and my students down) when I don't follow through with these plans. Sigh...
Day 29
Cycle 1 testing was done so we all moved on to something more fun: spaghetti bridges! I punched two holes in little cups and took out a bag of spaghetti (I have a closet at the back of my room that has all my supplies for all my activities) and my tin of pennies.
Each group of students created a bridge by threading one strand of spaghetti through the holes. One student held the ends of the spaghetti while another gently placed pennies in the cup until the spaghetti broke.
The students were surprised how many pennies it took to break the spaghetti! Once it did, they repeated the experiment with 2 strands of spaghetti, then 3, and so on. The data collection took quite a while. I was so impressed when I heard a group say "We should redo with 3 'cause that number was higher than 4." The data is not perfectly linear by any means, but it was generally increasing.
Next, they had to create a scatter plot by hand, then enter the data in the graphing calculator and perform a linear regression to get the equation of the line of best fit.
We will continue with this tomorrow - there are questions for them to answer before we start over with spaghettinni!
Day 25
Today was the second day of review for tomorrow's test. They worked really well. They practiced using graphing calculators to perform quadratic regressions (it would be awesome if the 5E-13x term didn't show up), some used manipulatives to solve systems and they all did a good job interpreting quadratic graphs. They should be well prepared for tomorrow.
