3-2-1 Summary

I'm linking up with Teaching Statistics for the #MTBOS Challenge and 3-2-1 Summary.

3 things that happened this week:

1. Survived the first week of school! Yay! I love all my kiddos this year. They're great! And they are so eager to learn - double yay!
2. Finally finished getting all my data stuff together. I made data folders for every single 8th grader so it took a while! Now I just need to finish grading these pre-tests and we can start charting!
3. Started implementing my new bellringer routine on Friday. My kids loved the error analysis activity that we did. I'm excited for Tuesday's bellringer!

2 things that I enjoyed this week that were not school related:

1. Boyfriend and I took a trip to Raleigh and we had loads of fun! We went to the farmer's market and bought three bottles of fresh honey. It tasted soooo good - we couldn't pass it up! We then nerded out at the bookstore and poked around Sam's, Michael's, and Trader Joe's!
2. Went to go with my parents to visit my sister at college. She's studying to be a music teacher. We ate at Chico's (my first time - I've been missing out!) and then went back to her new apartment where she gave me a bunch of free ECU stuff that they were giving away for free! Score!!

1 thing I'm looking forward to this week:

1. Starting my math lessons! Last week was full of get to know you activities, ice breakers, setting up interactive notebooks, and pre assessments. Tuesday will be our first math lesson! :)

New School Year Ideas

Long time, no blog! I was afraid this was going to happen once school started back! I'm definitely going to make it a priority to blog at least once a week - probably every Saturday. I have so much to tell!! Eeeek!

The first day back with the kids was Monday. Our group of kids this year are ah-ma-zing! I was a little nervous at the beginning because our hall is now a four person team, so every one of our classes are filled with 30 or more kids. But seriously, even though it's only the first week of school, I can tell that this will be a fabulous year! This week was spent doing ice breakers with the kids, getting to know them, and setting up the beginnings of our interactive notebooks. As soon as I get these parental consent forms signed and return, I can't wait to start posting pics up here to share! I have yet to show my classroom pics! I keep forgetting to take picture before I leave. I will have to remember to do so next week!

 This year, I decided to change up my bellringer routine. Before, I would give a couple problems for my students to solve that reviewed over what we learned the day before. This year, I decided to take a different route. I was reading through another blog and saw they had something similar (If it was you, please let me know so I can give you a shout out! I can't remember who it was :( ). I liked the concept they had, but I changed up some of the themes to best fit my class.

Every Monday is known as Mental Monday. My kids will have to complete problems without a calculator and use EOG like gridded response sheets to record their answer so they can get use the that part of the state test.

Tuesday is known as Tough Patterns Tuesday (Borrowed that one!) I really liked that concepts so that is one that I kept from the original poster. Tough patterns tuesday is when I give my students a graph, table, etc. and they will have to analyze the graph or table and answer questions. A bit part of the 8th grade EOG is functions, so this is perfect to implement every week.

Wednesday is known as Words Worth Knowing Wednesday. A big focus this year for our math department is math vocabulary. My front bulletin board is dedicated to math vocabulary for our units. We will do something different each week, such as creating frayer models, engaging in a matching activity, drawing or providing examples for each vocab word to name a few.

Thursday is Throwback Thursday AKA #tbt (I borrowed this one too - I loved it too much!) This is when we solve problems that we have learned this year and are reviewing or even concepts that were covered in years past.

Lastly, my all time favorite...

Flub Friday is when we focus on error analysis type questions. This past Friday was the first day we actually started bellringers. I found this AWESOME activity from Middle School Math Addict. (You all should check her out! She has both a TPT store and blog - just click the links provided!) It's an error analysis activity that focuses on two friends that apply the order of operations. My students worked together to see which friend worked it out correct and which one didnt. They then had to write a written response as to who they thought was wrong and why. I LOVED THIS because it turns out that I was seeing this scenario in real life! It was hilarious! One student would get the friend 1 answer and the other student would get friend 2's answer. So after I gave them time to work, we had a class discussion about their answers. I let friend 1 supporters argue their point and friend 2 supporters argue their point. In summary, it was such a great activity. And, it was a perfect intro because it review what they should have learned in the past and allowed me to clear up misconceptions at the same time (applying operations from left to right).

I had such a great time this past week. I can't wait until this next week when I actually start my lessons! Next post - DATA!! Be on the look out! :)

I'm alive!!

My poor bloggy! This week was the first week back from summer break and it's been a long one! I have so much to share, but will wait until the long weekend to tell about my week.

Quick question for my fellow bloggers - if you intend on showing student work and activities (of course, no face showing and no last names) on your blog, instagram, and/org facebook, do you send home a letter and have the parents sign to allow this or opt out? I'd like to know if I should do this to cover myself or just post and ask for forgiveness later.

Thanks for your feedback! :)

Back to School SALE!

Hey guys!

Just in case you haven't heard, TPT is throwing a 1 day back to school sale starting at MIDNIGHT! Here's your chance to purchase those common core posters to hang on your board...

or data trackers to have your students keep up with their growth throughout the year!

My ENTIRE store will be 20% off! On top of that, TPT will throw in an additional 10%!! Visit my store here! :)

Sunday 3-2-1 Link Up!

It's been a crazy week! Last week was my last full week before school starts for teachers tomorrow. Of course, it was spent either setting up my classroom or helping out at district workshops. Two days last week, I helped out at the new teacher orientation that our district holds every year to welcome the brand new teachers. Three of the six middle school teachers there are coming to my school, so I more than happy to come and help. They are AWESOME! I had a blast those two days. I think we are going to have a fun year this year!

Anywho, I'm linking up with Middle School Math Rules for Sunday 3-2-1 Linky.

3 Things I Need to Accomplish This Week

1) Plan for my classes

2) Finish my practice interactive notebook for both 8th grade math and Foundations of Math II (at least the first two chapters)

3) Make copies for my data trackers, open house papers, and back to school forms

2 Things I'm Letting Go of For Now

1) Being such a perfectionist - It drives me insane.

2) Worrying over the first days of school (my b2s nightmares don't help)

1 Thing I Need to Remember

1) To breathe and understand that I can't worry over things that I can't control.

Monday Made It

Good Morning! I'm linking up with 4th grade frolics for another Monday Made it. I don't have too much to share this week. A lot of this week was spent cleaning my classroom and spending wayyyy too much money on shopping with friends!

This had to be #1 this morning. The past couple of nights have been rough. I haven't been able to stay asleep throughout the night because I have five million thoughts running through my head - mainly things I need to get done before school starts. Anywho, we used to have a keurig, but boyfriend wanted to buy a french press and try it out. We've never gone back!! Coffee out of a french press tastes so much better! I never thought I would admit that because I loved my keurig so much!

Last night I made these because I knew I was going to school today and needed new rules posters. When I was creating these, I decided to call them "classroom norms" instead of "classroom rules". I just think it sounds better to me than "rules". I love how they came out! I can't wait to put them up today - even though this will be a challenge since I am 5 feet and I'm planning on hanging these up above my whiteboard near the ceiling. This should be fun!

My friend over at Math Made Gr8 posted a pic of her classroom and I saw this near her desk. I HAD to have one! She graciously messaged me some links as to where to find one and I got this one off of amazon. I love this thing! And it matches my other cart that I already have in my classroom. It was definitely a splurge, but totally worth it because I can fit so much on the top two racks and have more room on my desk! And I put this thing together on my own. Boyfriend had a kick watching me even take this thing out of the box! :)

The next few pics are not part of Monday Made it, but I had to share because I was so excited about my deals this past weekend!

I.LOVE.THESE.PENCILS! These pencils are my all time favorite pencils! They are so stinkin' expensive during the school year, so I jump right on them when they go on sale during summer. These were $1 at staples and there was no limit! I cleaned their shelf off (shhh, don't tell anyone!) I was one of those crazies that waiting in the parking lot for them to open at 10am just so I could get to them first. Yeah, I told you I was a school supply addict!! Don't worry though Wilson peeps, when I went to check out, the manager was stocking the shelf with more! ;-)

Best deal of the weekend!! I dragged boyfriend all the way to Rocky Mount (it's about a 25 minute drive from me) to hit up the office depot the snag these deals!! The box of 12 mechanical pencils were on sale for 25 cents each with a limit of 3 and each inkjoy pen was also 25 cents with a limit of 3. With me and boyfriend getting 3 of each, I ended up getting a total of 72 mechanical pencils (6 boxes) and 6 inkjoy pens for $3.20!! Deal like this is NOT good for my school supply addiction! If office depot was closer to my house, I would go again! :)

That's all for now - I gotta head to school to work on my classroom! Until next time!

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