Slope matching actvity

     In Algebra we are working on Slope-Intercept Form. I'm trying to flip my two Algebra classes, but it is not as easy as it sounds to do this. My two classes are very different from each other. Actually they are polar opposites! My one class does all of the work I give them with only two students that I need to follow up with. My other Algebra class has about 3/4 of the class that do not do the work required and it is a daily struggle to keep them motivated and up to date on their work. They have been watching videos and completing their notes at home then we are doing activities to reinforce what they learned. What I am finding is that they may copy the notes but they don't read them for understanding. This is going to be a process but I'm going to continue until the end of the year. It is something that I've always wanted to try, so we will see how it goes.

     Today we started this slope-intercept matching activity from Math Giraffe at teacherspayteachers.com. How I love teacherspayteachers.com. I can make great foldables but not these activities. This one is well worth the price. Students match graphs, slope and y-intercepts and equations. The only thing I added to this activity was to number the graphs from 1-10 so they could put the first ten in order to make it easier for grading. Everyone was talking and working hard today and that makes it a good day.

I don't know why they will not clear their desks off so they have room to work. Why????

 I prefer to have partners for this but when there is an odd number we have one 

group of three. Great collaboration with this group.

There is a template included for the pieces to be glued to but 

I had extra colored paper I needed to use. 

.

Deep concentration here. I love it:)

     This is a short quick post but I am trying to stay to my three post per week. So far I'm on track for this week. YES!!! I am having so much fun this quarter and my students are loving this too. I'm hoping that the videos and notes get better. This quarter is flying by. Wow.

Til next time,

Jan

Slope Triangles

    Here is another post that has been in my drafts since March. Oh my! Thank goodness I have summer to sit down and share these with you. Enjoy:)   
    This was the first time I have taught slope triangles. Actually, and don't judge me, I've never given them any time in my curriculum. That changed this year as I decided to spend several days working with them in my Pre-Algebra 8th grade classes. 
     We started our unit with Fawn Nguyen's awesome lesson using staircases to begin our discussion of slope. I know that Fawn used this with her 6th graders but it was appropriate to use with my Pre-Algebra classes. Here is the link to Fawn's first of two posts on this activity. Fawn goes into great detail explaining the questioning and student interaction. Take time to read her posts, they are awesome. Thanks Fawn!  My students completed the worksheet in one class period. I'm hoping that next year we will spend more time with our discussions.
     I love the video that Fawn shared from the Utah Avalanche Center discussing the slope of hills and avalanches. We showed this at the beginning of class the next day.

      Next we did an interactive notebook page on counting to find slope. 

We drew slope triangles and labeled them. 

Then they did the INB page below with their partners. 

I probably should have added a vertical line on this page as well.

Followed by this activity from illuminations.

              

     There were a few other activities that I will share in a later post.

     Of course we watched Colin Dodds Slope video. 

The kids love his songs and so do I!

     It was worth spending this amount of time on slope triangles. It gave the students an added visual for finding slope that I know many of them need. I was happy with how much the slope triangles helped my struggling students. When they would hear the words slope triangle they knew exactly what they needed to do. 
     

Click here for a copy of the documents:

Count to find slope

Slope Triangles INB

Illuminations lesson on slope triangles

Til next time,
Jan

Slope interactive notebook pages

Here are some of the Interactive Notebook pages on slope that I have used with my Algebra students. I'm changing my foldables and notes to go along with our new notebooks so everything is smaller than before. It's killing me that on some of the pages I am covering up the graph paper with notes and not utilizing it for graphs. Also, our xerox machine cannot print on colored paper and I am having to live with boring white paper! UGH! That just means lots of colored pencils and markers are a must! All in all I think the notebooks are turning out great. 

This is going to be a post with lots of pictures of our interactive notebooks but not much commentary. Life is so busy there isn't much time to write. I will probably come back and edit this post later so I can add more comments because there is just so much to say but until then, enjoy the pictures.

I totally stole these from Sarah at math equals love. Go see Sarah's post where she has great pages she has used with her students. See what the inside of the slope dude foldable looks like. So easy to make. Doesn't everyone love Slope Dude? The students had to draw 3 postive slopes, 3 negative slopes, 3 slopes of zero and 3 undefined slopes for the top part of this page.

Another page from Sarah. I changed the red color to gray because it was too close to the purple and hard to tell apart.

  

I have changed many of my foldables into small graphic organizers 

to fit into our new notebooks. I really never heard the phrase, "slope triangles," before but I am seeing it in several posts and assessments so I added it to this page.

I should have said the x increases by the same value and

the y increases by the same value. My kids would think they

both have to be the same.

The left page x and y intercepts definitions are from Sarah again at math equals love. What would I do without Sarah????

I love having the graphs available at the top 

of the page but I it means shrinking my foldables. 

This one is basic but it turned out OK.

Inside of the intercept foldable.

The students picked 4 more sets of points to complete on the 2nd graph.

Here are some of the pages. I will download the rest soon. Promise:)

Slope Intercept Form INB

x and y intercept foldable

Slope interactive notebook pages
point-slope form INB

practice pages for slope
slope formula

Til next time,
Jan

Pythagorean Triple Foldable Booklet

     I wanted to find some work for my students to do on Pythagorean Triples this year. In the past triples were two questions in the math book. I discovered there really isn't much out there especially for 8th grade. I knew that I wanted the kids to understand that you can multiply triples by a factor and another triple is the result. I also want them to know the slopes of a family of triples are equal. Reviewing perimeter and area seemed like a good idea. They never understand that if you double the sides of a figure that the area does not just double.So here is the booklet I created.

     When you cut this booklet, do not cut on the lines. I had a hard time getting the pages to line up perfectly. I don't know why. So I just made a large margin all the way around when I cut it out. It still turned out looking nice.

      I like to use graph paper and have students create graphs and tape them into their foldable. At the beginning of the year we have each student bring in a packet of graph paper to their math teacher. We keep the graph paper in the classroom and pass it out as needed. That way the kids don't have to carry it around or forget to bring it to class. I keep a bin on the back table and they can take what they need even if it is for another class. I always have plenty on hand to last the year. And as you know, I save the scraps to be used later.

Click here for a copy of the  Pythagorean triple booklet.

       Now here comes the funny part. I was trying to figure out how to print the pages, front and back to make the booklet. I spent a long time working to get the pages in the right order. Finally, I just gave up. The next day I was talking to Gina, the math teacher across the hall from me and a young techie. I told her my frustration with trying to get the booklet together. She told me that if you save the word document as a pdf, which I do, when you go to print there is a button that says booklet. What? Who knew? Oh my gosh, it just puts the pages in the correct order to make the booklet. (Don't judge me, I was clueless!) So anyway, if anyone out there doesn't know this, when you go to print the booklet, click on booklet. How simple is that?
     This turned out to be a wonderful lesson with the class. It did take two periods for us to assemble and fill in the booklet. It was a great review of several different topics as well. Hope you enjoy it.

                                                               Til next time,
     
                                                                     Jan

Housing Blueprints - Day 2

     Today was the last day to connect with students before I have to post grades for third quarter so I was not able to start my blueprint exploration with the kids today. I was able to post some of the blueprints around the room and my students were very interested in what we will be doing with them. I also placed a couple outside my room on the bulletin board for the other students to look at. As you can see there is so much that can be applied to math. We could say everything in these blueprints applies to math!

This blueprint screams slope to me. I hope the kids see that as well.

This blueprint has so many area and volume components to it. Love it!

This one is a little hard to see but it is stairways and doorways.

            It will be fun to see what the students create for their problems. I have a feeling it is going to be one of those busy, exhausting, but great days. 

I'll post again tomorrow. 

Jan

Housing Blueprints

     I am fortunate enough to have blueprints of all the phases of building a house. (My husband's occupation.) I had these laminated and I post them around the room. The day that the kids walk in they are so excited and just want to spend a day looking at everything that is on them. There is measurement, scale, proportion, slope, area, volume, and the list goes on. I have 15 different blueprints in total and I just don't have the time to drag them home and make problems over all of the various units. This is the last week before spring break so I have decided to use the blueprints as students exploration lessons for my Pre Algebra students.
     The students will be in groups of 4 and given a sheet to create 2  math problems related to the blueprints. I will have rulers, protractors and dry erase markers available at each station. We will have a short discussion of all the possible topics for their questions.  The students will be able to make questions that are based on their abilities and I will steer them to the levels I think are appropriate for them. I may even assign different topics per group. One group may measure the perimeter of the driveways where others will have to create a problem to find how much asphalt will be needed to construct the driveway. Some may find the slope of the roofs and others may find how many shingles will be needed to cover the roof. I am excited about this because the kids will create the questions for me and then I will have a bank of questions to use for future lessons. YES!!!
     Check back tomorrow and I will post some pictures of the blueprints and my classroom. I will post some of the problems the kids create in next weeks post. I am excited and I know they are going to love this lesson. I wish I could make a copy of the blueprints but they are so big. If there are builders in your area maybe they will donate old blueprints to your school. Let me know, I would love to see how you apply these in your classes.

                                                     Til next time,
                                                          Jan

Finding Slope Foldable

         It never fails, I start teaching slope and my students have so much trouble understanding the concepts. This year it began right away! So we slowed down, and took time to make this foldable which shows examples of the four types of slopes. When doing the foldables in this unit we have been cutting out small graphs and pasting them in. It just takes so much time. I liked Journal Wizards, My tools for finding slope  foldable, so I used it. The only change I made was to make the foldable out of graph paper. Why didn't I think of this earlier?

My tools for finding slope foldable

      The inside of the foldable has examples of the four different types of slope. We graphed and counted rise/run for each problem and then used the  slope formula to find the slope.

Finding slope using rise/run

                The students will be to use this as a reference on their homework. Love it!

Finding slope using slope formula

      Yes I know I dropped the negative three on the bottom example. My kids caught the mistake and we changed it. Whenever I make a mistake and they catch it I say, " I just did that to make sure you were paying attention." Their response, "Oh sure Mrs. Lichtenberger!" Can't fool them.

                                                              Til next time,
                                                                     Jan

Slope pictures

    Here in Chicago we are use to cold, windy winters. This year has been extreme, even for us. Last week school was cancelled for Monday and Tuesday. When I woke up Monday the temperature was 24 degrees below zero! Same thing happened this week on Monday and Tuesday. School was cancelled and everyone in my house was going stir crazy including me. The real problem was I had meetings and a sub on Thursday last week and Wednesday this week. I needed to have a lesson for my sub so for my Pre-Algebra 2 classes I used Sarah from Math = Love's  lesson, Four types of Slope Pictures.  The students created a picture that included lines with 5 positive slopes, 5 negative slope, 5 zero slopes and 5 undefined slopes. They needed to draw it, label the lines as positive, negative, zero or undefined and color it. They had one period, 45 minutes, to complete it and it needed to be turned in before they left.
Here are a few of the pictures they created. I think they did a great job!

I have a couple of challenging classes behaviorally and always cringe when I am out. I received a glowing report from my sub saying she had a wonderful day with the students that my two challenging classes were outstanding! Wow! Thanks Sarah for the great idea!