Oh. My. Goodness. It has been a week from I don't know where, but I'm glad its O-V-E-R! Even though I'm exhausted, I am also bubbling with excitement inside because I have been asked to be on the Global Glitter Tribe Blog!!!
ALSO, we are doing a monthly linky, which I'm excited about because I haven't blogged in a little while. Ok, a looooong while. But I'm BACK! Want to join up? You know you do! It's easy!
To Participate:
1. Save the image below
2. Open it in PPT or some other image editing software and type or add pictures of your responses
3. Blog about it on your blog
4. Share the Global Glitter Logo and link back to the original post from us
5. Add your link to the InLinkz linkup at the end of the post!
Here's what I did:
Lesson I loved: I had so much fun teaching even and odd numbers this week. On the first day, I made a few kids stand up, we counted them and then I asked them to partner up with someone also standing. We made a big deal about how sometimes someone doesn't have a dance partner, so that is an odd number. After doing this with several numbers, one kid said, "Mrs. Palmer, why don't you be his partner so he doesn't have to dance alone?", and of course I said I would be his partner and started to go towards him dancing. He ran back to his seat and said, "It's ok, I don't need a dance partner!". I always love to read in math class too, so I read Even Steven and Odd Todd.
One issue I'm passionate about: The teacher evaluation system in my state is a joke. It's only 2 years old and already our union is suing our Public Ed Dept because there were so many mistakes in data that impacted teachers' ratings. It was as if our Governor looked at all the failing systems in the country and picked the worst one to implement with us. I could go on and on, but basically 50% of our eval is based on this crazy mathematical equation that not a single person understands that takes test scores (from the previous year) and somehow makes them into a rating. Also, we get penalized for using more than 4 of our 10 sick days a year. Not cool.
Back to School Must Have: obviously
Activity to Share: Since the 2nd week of school I have been doing Number Talks/Number of the Day with my students and I am amazed at the rise in level of mathematical thinking coming out of their brains! After doing a little modeling, they really have been challenging themselves to come up with ways to impress me. Of course, it helps that when someone does impress me, I write a note home to their parents! Since then, I have kids decomposing numbers like pros, counting on and back, doing multi-step equations, and even using multiplication concepts AND being able to prove that their ways to show the number of the day work. They're using vocabulary, demonstrating with confidence, having discussions and fixing their mistakes. These are 2nd graders!!!! They blow my mind daily! They love number talks so much, that they BEG to do more! I use a simple bubble map that I laminated for reuse.
Little Known Fact: Yes, I have met President Obama! It was before he became President and had come to New Mexico for a rally. My hubs knew a secret service agent, who got me in the front row! After his speech, he came down and shook our hands. I was too nervous to remember to take a picture, but I have a witness!
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