New books!

Today, I received my Dinah Zike books that I ordered! I absolutely love them!

I'm super excited to sift through these and start generating some great ideas to use next year. Definitely worth the money spent and the notebook foldables book came with a CD so I have digital copies of the templates as well! Love love love anything digital! I also love the big book of math book. It has foldable suggestions by math concept. 

Today has been spent moving the rest of my classroom to my new home. I've completely moved out and it's definitely bittersweet. Tomorrow will be spent unpacking what I can and organizing my junk. The teacher that was in my current room hasn't moved out yet, since we just found out about our new assignments.

This weekend in North Carolina is tax free weekend. I am super excited because back to school time is my favorite time of year! I'm going shopping with a group of teachers I work with and hitting up all the teacher stores! And of course making stops at Target and Staples for great cheap deals on school supplies! Since this will be the last tax free weekend, I will definitely be taking advantage of this last one!

That's all for now. I'm exhausted!

This is what happens when you don't blog for a couple days...

Ahhh, where to begin? So much has happened since I last posted!

• Last Friday, I received a phone call that I've been moved to 8th grade to teach Algebra 1, Geometry and Science. I'm okay with the move - I love the teachers on the hall and I actually started teaching 8th grade math before I was moved to 7th grade two years ago. It's kind of like going back home. But, I am extremely nervous about teaching Geometry. I haven't even had Geometry as a class since college. Not only do I have to prep for this class, I have to prep for a new science as well. Since I've taught Algebra the past four years, most of my focus will be on becoming proficient in teaching Geometry and 8th grade science well.  If anyone has any great websites or resources for Geometry, please let me know! I need all the help I can get!

• My teacherspayteachers store is slowly taking off! I opened my store at the end of June and have slowly been adding things to my store. I read on the forums that it takes a while for a sale and that summer months are the slow months. But then I finally made my first sale the third week of July! Then I had a couple more this week! It definitely feels great when someone purchases or downloads something that I created. I'm extremely motivated to create more items for my store!

• I've been working on prepping for my first 5k. For someone who is overweight and non-athletic, this is hard!! I've been using the couch to 5k app to keep me on track. So far it's been okay, switching between walking and running for a certain amount of time. I don't get too tired when I run anymore, but my legs hurt really bad! And in the middle of the workout, my leg starts to get numb (I think it's because of my shoes?) Right now, I'm starting week 3, which starts off with running for 3 minutes straight. Whhhhatt?! We'll see how this goes! The 5k is in September so I hope I can keep up until then.

• Two words - Interactive Notebooks. I've been working to try and get as much done as I can with my Teacher ISN for Algebra 1. Making new templates from scratch and coming up with different ideas for my notebook take the longest time. I just ordered two of Dinah Zike's books, one being Foldables for notebooks and compositions, and I'm hoping I can get foldable ideas from it. I've also been making homework sheets and activities for each section before I move on to the next, so that is also slowing me down. And now that I know for sure that I'm teaching Geometry, I've started a Teacher ISN for that as well. That will take me the longest, as I am not as comfortable with the content. As long as it's taking me to put these ISN's together, I'm not sure if I want to have an ISN for science anymore!

That's all for now. Goodnight and a high five to those that actually read through this entire post!! :)

My favorite time of the year

I have got to stop walking into stores before pay day! I love this time of year. I love seeing all of the school supply displays and super cheap deals at the dollar spot in Target. I have always had a secret obsession with school supplies, even when I was a student. Johnathan loves to make fun of me about it! But I get oh so excited when I see these supplies on sale!

I've been working on vocabulary for my word wall. My first set of vocabulary posters are for my first unit in Algebra. Love chevron!

Shout out to Bella for holding up my sign for the picture! :)

I also just finished adding a new product to my store. 7th grade common core standard posters. They're color coded and have a cute polka dotted background. Check them out at my TPT store!

ISN update and TOY shenanigans

Since I've come back from vacation, I've been spending most of my time working on my teacher of the year portfolio. I have to answer eight prompts and they are due on Thursday (whoops!) Of course my old college self kicked in and was able to knock out six of eight papers within the past two days. Tomorrow I'm going to finish the last two papers, drop by my school to pick up my principals' recommendation, then make seven copies of this thing and drop it off! Whooo!

When I needed a brain break from writing papers, I continue to work on my Algebra ISN for next year. I'm really excited about how I'm going to implement these next year. Last year was my trial run and received positive feedback from administrators, peers, and students. This year, I'm going to incorporate more foldables and more color! Speaking of color, I received a buy one get one coupon from staples for their colored paper. Since I plan on being more colorful, I went and bought 4 packs (500 in a pack I believe) for the price of 2, and an extra 15% off from using the staples back to school pass.

Here's a pic of what I worked on last night.

Last week I created the Matching Properties Activity sheet that is in my TPT store for FREE. Check it out! The top right pic shows an integer mat that I downloaded from the blog mathequalslove. She's awesome! Check out her blog when you get a chance! The oval below it are practice problems that I made so my students can practice modeling. Lastly, the foldable on the bottom is one that I made on how to add and subtract integers. I plan on posting this in my TPT store whenever I get a chance. UPDATE - The foldable at the bottom of the picture is now in my store for FREE. Go check it out! :)

Back to School Thinking

I had a great time at Virginia Beach this past weekend...definitely need to make it a priority to visit the beach again before school starts!

Since I've been away, I haven't made anything new, but I didn't make a post on what I created last week. As I was reflecting on what I did last school year for back to school activities, I decided I wanted to take a different approach to what I do this year. I want to do more "get to know you" activities and learn more about what my students like at school and how they like to learn. So I created these cute little banners in a shape of a triangle, heart, and star that I am going to do this year. I've seen a couple floating around pinterest, but they were more for elementary school. Since I teach middle school, I wanted more questions about how my kids like to learn other than what their favorite number is or to draw a picture of themselves. Soooo, here is what it looks like completed.

You can find the templates for this one, the heart, and the star at my TPT store. They are only $1!

Vacay

Will be absent from blogging the next couple days. I am vacationing at the beach for the weekend!! Whoooo!! Have a great weekend!! :-)

Why didn't I think of this SOONER?!

Every year, parents usually ask me for my contact information even after I've passed out the usuals. This year, I created a template with all my contact information that I'm going to turn into MAGNETS!! I have multiple rolls of magnet tape that I can't use on my whiteboard, so they'll be perfect for my project. I'm super excited! Here's a peek!

Nerdy Teacher Things.

So for the past month or so, I've been obsessing over purchasing a laminator. We have one at school, but the teachers aren't allowed to use it - only the media coordinator can (and I'm too impatient to wait!). With everything that I've been downloading from TPT that I want to use next year, I want to laminate them before I bring them to school. Nothing too expensive...just something to get the job done. While walking around Target a couple days ago, the laminator that I've been eyeing had gone on sale! Whooo! So this is what I've been doing the past couple of days.

I stumbled upon a website that provides a flipbook for common core standards. Since I'll be referencing back to these constantly, I decided it will be the first to be laminated! And voila!

It ended up being wayyyyy thicker than I thought, so I need to buy a keyring big enough to hold everything, but at least I know I won't lose it!! Being the nerd I am, I got card stock happy and color coded each standard for easy finding.

Foldable!

It's been a couple days since I've blogged. I'm experiencing a bit of a lazy streak right now! Summer has been great, but it enables my laziness! The past couple nights, I've been working on my ISN for next year. I did implement ISN's last year, but I didn't do them the way I should have. So forcing myself to get these done allows me to make templates ahead of time and really think about the layout process. Here is one lesson that I did. It's on variables and expressions.

Foldable to contain key words for expressions.

When you open the flaps, voila!

As soon as I can figure this out, I'll post this template up for you to grab and enjoy!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Interactive Notebook

Last year was my first year in implementing the interactive notebooks. My only regret is that I did not discover these sooner!! I had never heard of these before until I was being a nerdy teacher last summer and came across a math blog. I was HOOKED! I only did interactive notebooks in my two math classes and not my science. This upcoming year, I want to implement them in all classes. I did struggle just a little when our district turned into a 1:1 iPad classroom in the middle of the school year. We were pushed to incorporate the iPads into our lessons every day, and I struggled to find a middle. But I gave it much though this summer, and I've finally decided how to incorporate the two.

If you have not done an interactive notebook in your classroom, you should definitely try it out!! My kids loved it (for the most part) and it was very handy at the end of the year when we had EOGs. My students didn't have to constantly ask me to remind them how to solve something we covered 5 months ago. They just took it upon themselves to look in their table of contents, then look up the notes from that lesson.

Being the nerd I am (hence the blog name, the math nerdette), I have started to create my Algebra 1 practice ISN to get ahead of the game. I haven't gotten too far, but I do still have about 2 months left of vacation. Check out the pics!

The Beginning of Something Spectacular!

Just kidding. Hi all! After a year of drooling over all of these awesome teacher blogs that I've come across, I've decided to start one of my own. I'm hoping this blog will serve many purposes, such as:

• Organizing my scattered thoughts
• Coming up with teaching ideas
• Sharing ideas with others
• Vent session?
• Lots of randomness

Just a quick intro...I'm Christine! I teach at a middle school in North Carolina. I'm entering my 5th year teaching middle school and I absolutely love it. I currently teach Pre Algebra, Algebra 1, and 7th grade Science. With the new common core standards and lack of resources, I've started to create a lot of my own material that I hope you all find useful as I post them here or on my TPT store. 

Hope you enjoy whatever shenanigans are posted up here! :-)