A Very SLOW Week...

Wow – this week has been a SLOW week!! The first three days we did a CATS Scrimmage (a practice version of our state assessment) and then nearly all of my Algebra students were gone to the Jr. Beta Convention!! My classes were over half empty, but we didn’t waste any time…we practiced graphing lines given the slope and a point. I pulled up a piece of graph paper on my interactive whiteboard and I randomly chose a point and a slope and had the students come one at a time to the board. They got to draw their line with the stylus pen (which to them is so cool) and if they did it correctly, they got a piece of candy. (It’s amazing what students will do for a small piece of candy!) If they were incorrect, they always got another chance later on in class. They also got candy for raising their hand first if they noticed a mistake in someone else’s work. At first, I had intended on making the “come to the board by yourself” part voluntary, mainly for the sake of time. But to my surprise, every student (and I mean EVERY) wanted to get up in front of the others and try. I was amazed!!

We also used the student skills practice page for the Recycling and Saving problem (5.3). To be completely honest with you I had NO idea those skills practice pages were in the student assignment books at all until this year. They are a GREAT tool for extra practice or review!! So, by the end of this VERY SLOW week, when I should have felt overwhelmed and behind from all of the craziness, I felt a sense of satisfaction instead. My students got to “perform” for me one-by-one on the interactive whiteboard (every single one of them) and we got some extra practice in on a very important concept in mathematics. What more could I ask for? I am SOOOO ready for next week!!