Minecraft Day Workshop at Rutgers

So when I think of minecraft I think of playing a video game. This workshop opened my eyes to all the different uses of minecraft. What a great incentive for students to really learn and enjoy and most of all be engaged! Check out http://services.minecraftedu.com/wiki/Teaching_with_MinecraftEdu This will give you many ideas. You can also check out tutorials on you tube. There is so much to learn and teach. You can teach to learn geometry, fractions, ruins in countries. AND you can even relate to the common core! The only set back is you NEED to have windows10 or mac!! Have fun!

Marble Maze

My students are learning about energy. They made marble mazes in the gym. They had masking tape and paper towel rolls. There challenge was to make the marble land in the cup. They were so excited to do this project. They worked well in their groups and cam up with some great ideas. They really had to take into consideration potential and kinetic energy. A question we talk about is why does a roller coaster have its first drop from the highest point? It stores up its energy. They had to have their marble have enough energy to make it down the run. Would it have enough energy to go up an incline??

Lesson Plans

One of the things I do not enjoy working on is my lesson plans. When I first started teaching it took me forever. I would write down all the details of the lesson. The funny thing is I would not follow half of it. I am always thinking of ideas almost as my lesson is going on. I believe a big part of learning is discussion. And in discussion new ideas come up. Here is a link to my FREE lesson plan template. It condenses the week on one page. This is so useful to have out on your desk and it is simple.

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Lovin an early dismissal - and doing school work

What can be better then when snow is suppose to fall and we get to go home early. These are great days. I spent the afternoon cleaning and of course doing school work.

So one of the issues my students ALWAYS have is what they should do with a remainder when dividing. In the earlier grades they get so use to just saying R3 or R5 and they truly do not understand what it means.

They need to know it is the leftover or it might be the piece of the whole. AND when solving word problems sometimes we drop it, use it, or we just forget about it.

These task cards will help them. There is also a poster or handout to remind them what to do...CHECK THEM OUT

Understanding Division Word Problems - What to do with the remainder?

SUPER BOWL

So with the Super Bowl coming up I decide to take the time to make some task cards. I created 32 cards that are all real world problems. I looked up the cost of packages, attendance in the past, number of active players, number of refs, time in the quarters, distance on the field and so on and I created some pretty cool questions.

I even learned from these!!

Check them out and leave some feedback, let me know what you think.

SUPER BOWL TASK CARDS

Kids teaching Kids

So I feel it is that time of the year that students should start showing what they have learned. What better way to do that than have them teach a lesson. One of my stations for the next 2 weeks in math class will be for the group to teach a certain concept we have already learned. I choose the topics and then the children can pick which one they want.

They must create a lesson, game, and assessment. Each year I am amazed by the work they put into it. The children teaching truly gain a knowledge of the topic. It is easy to add 2 fractions, but to explain how to do it and break it down shows true knowledge of the topic.

I try to do this twice during the year. It is time consuming, but it is worth it!