Some fun(ish) worksheets

I'm going to try to get my box.net materials updated over this coming week.  In the meantime, here are a couple of decent worksheets that you may find helpful.

First, I made one to practice graphing standard form - I just ripped off Mr. K's idea.  Thanks!  And some of my students actually liked the joke (I googled Laffy Taffy jokes).

For tomorrow, students will be graphing systems of inequalities, so I decided to create a little Ohio Jones adventure (Indiana's lesser known brother).  Here is the full lesson and just the activity in pdf form. 

(UPDATE: Here is the follow-up lesson in word form - Ohio Jones and the Pyramid of Power.  Here is the follow-up lesson in pdf form if you're having trouble seeing the word doc).

Here is what the maze should look like after being solved:

Algebra 1: Graphing Lines Practice

I just used this worksheet from Mr. K for the first time the other day.  I thought it had a pretty cool setup, but I didn't realize just how effective it would be until I used it in my first class.  The "solve the joke" aspect of it helps draw them in, but the hidden beauty is in its self-checking properties.  Since each line must pass through exactly one number and one letter, a line that doesn't do this must be graphed incorrectly.  Students started realizing this and would go back and find mistakes without having to check with an answer key.  The only bad part (sorry to say) is that they had absolutely no idea what the answer was supposed to mean (see earlier post).

I made up a "balloon pop" homework to go with this that was inspired by Green Globs.  I wish I had the tech access for my students play that game.

ELL Joke Worksheets?

Kate wrote a great post about the value of a well-structured worksheet last month.

I agree that there are huge benefits of having a unified task, with some type of self-checking or affirmation. And a little fun and/or creativity doesn't hurt. Joke worksheets do that pretty well. However, my students (who are generally not native English speakers) hardly ever get the joke. They tackle the sheet with excitement, but there is usually that little moment of disappointment at the end when they don't get the punchline. Instead, of course, of the expected groan and eye-roll that accompanies a quality pun.

"What do you get when you mix prune juice with holy water?"
"A religious movement"

After two minutes of explanation, that loses some of its original zing.

So my question is if anyone has or knows about these kinds of worksheets developed for ELL students? I'm kind of doubting that there are any, but it never hurts to ask. I think I will probably end up creating some next semester, with jokes solicited from my students. Then I can publish the DCP Spanglish Algebra Joke Book.

Review game: Trashketball

I know that many teachers out there play some form of Trashketball, so this isn't really groundbreaking. However, I always have problems with these kinds of review games. Structuring them so that the higher-skilled students don't dominate or pressure the other students can be quite difficult. Or, looking at it the other way, there are plenty of lower-skilled students who are happy to sit back and let others on their team get the work done for them.

I developed Tic Tac Toe Battle Royale a couple years ago which addresses some of these concerns pretty well. But you can only do the same game so many times. My experiments with Trashketball in the past haven't been that successful, and so I thought about how I could improve it to work more effectively in my class. This is what I came up with:

1. Break students into groups of 3 or 4 - for me, this yields no more than 6 groups in my Algebra 1 classes. Give each group a letter, and each person in the group a number. Write these in a grid on the board. (If there is an unfilled spot in a group, that spot becomes a wild card - any person can take that number.)
   
2. For each round, create 6 separate problems that all target the same concept, but that are slightly different. This prevents the copying problem found in board races.
3. Hand out a template for doing the work on. My freshmen need an organizer for everything. "Get out a sheet of paper" just doesn't fly.
4. Show the 6 versions of the problem, giving the class enough time to get it done.
5. Call for silence. Block the projector. Randomly (or not) call a number between 1 and 4. The student in each group with that number comes to the board - all 6 at once. Have the board sectioned off so they know where to write. They are allowed to bring their own graphic organizer up with them, but no one on the team may offer help at this point. The idea here, of course, is that students must make sure that all group members have done the work. Students who tend to slack off have to at least write down the work that others in their group are doing. Not ideal, but it's better than spacing out.
6. Have the trashketball basket set up. As students complete their work on the board, tell them if they are right or not (make sure to have answer keys ready!). Right answers get a point, and they get to take a shot for a bonus point. There is less waiting around time this way - some students will still be writing their problems as others are already lining up to shoot.
7. Record the scores and move on. Winning team gets a whatever.

How it looks:


I did this for the first time today, and was amazed by how well they did. There were only 2 students in the class that I couldn't get totally engaged. The rest did all their work, were excited to take their shots, and so on. It takes longer to make this activity due to the multiple problems, but it was really worth it. Man, do they love tossing paper balls into the recycle bin.

I know it kind of breaks my respect class norm, but it really warms my heart to hear a kid (who I can usually barely get to sit down, and who really wanted to win) say to his teammate who hadn't done his work on the board carefully: "Fool! I told you it was negative eleven!"

Trashketball Problems (Keynote) (Powerpoint)
Answer Template (Word)

Math Department Photo: 2009-2010

Michelle Longosz, our former photo teacher, always takes amazing department photos for us each year. Here is the radical math department.

Algebra 1: Solving Equations Puzzle

Here is a puzzle activity for reviewing equation solving. I found that it worked better when I made an answer mat for students to put their pieces onto (I indicated a couple of pieces on the mat to help them align the rest of their pieces).

Here are two files in Pages and Word that you can work from to make your own.

Edit:
A comment from David Wees in a previous post with a similar puzzle I did for quadratics:

Yeah your puzzle is cool. So cool that I've created a random generator in Adobe Flex.

See my algebra puzzle generator.

Awesome!

Edit 2:
There is an app called Formulator Tarsia that will do this, but it only works for Windows (which I don't have access to) so I haven't tried it out. Give it a try!

Department Photos

It's been a yearly tradition for some time now for the DCP staff to take creative department photos. Our former photo teacher, Michelle Longosz, comes in, and we do a full on photo shoot. Math decided to go with a Brady Bunch theme this year. Here are math and science, and you can see them all on our website.

Does anyone else find this to be hilarious?

Or is it just me?

Anyway, if you don't already have xkcd in your RSS, you should definitely add it right away. And don't start browsing the archives unless you have a couple of hours to spare.

The Numeracy Project - Live

This is our Spirit Week 2007 gig. We rocked the house!
Voted best math teacher band in downtown San Jose!
Check out my singing debut in the second clip (get ready to turn down the volume...)

Prepositional Nightmare: Anywhere a Cat Can Go

One of the problems with block scheduling is that, when you lose a day of school, it throws your whole system off. Due to community day on Thursday, and spring break starting on Friday, periods 1 - 4 met twice this week, but 5-6 only met once. So, it was time for a slush lesson. Sorry, I mean "enrichment". I find these hard to do well, because if it is something worthwhile - such that you can justify spending 80 minutes of time with periods 1 through 4 - then you want the other periods to see it to. And if it isn't worthwhile, then why not just have a pizza party or something? But you'll never catch me throwing away a lesson like that. There's just no time to waste.

So I decided to experiment with correcting a linguistic problem that bothers me, but is not necessarily mission critical. That is the reversal of terms when saying division and subtraction problems out loud, confusing divided by with divided into, and my personal favorite, "subtract 7 to both sides". I know that part of the problem here is the somewhat arbitrary nature of prepositions, and I've been told that fluency with prepositions is one of the last things to develop when a person is learning a new language, and can take many years of practice. When students make these mistakes in class, I tend to repeat their words back to them, using the correct language, but not making a big deal out of it. My thinking here was that I could do a lesson on it, and then, when they make those mistakes in the future, I can just say "remember the correct way to say that?" and jog their memory, instead of launching cold into an explanation again and again.

I did the lesson. Nothing fancy - just some explanation, some practice, a little board wars (which I typically shun, but it's a slush lesson, so what the hey) and some delectable Easter candy prizes. Yesterday, the students were pretty non-enthused about working on prepositions (shocking, I know), and board wars was so-so, although there were quite a few kids who were very motivated to win the giant bunny lollipops. Today, I had some pig- and ducky-shaped candies to give away, and I think I struck gold, because the minute I showed them to my class, they freaked out and got super-focused. I don't really like bribery, but I think it's probably ok to break form on the day before vacation.

In any case, we were well into the first round of board wars when the phone rang. When I picked up the receiver, I heard some students say "Mr. Greene, we're in Algebra class right now and we have a question." I was pretty confused, until their teacher came on the line. He had them on speaker phone, and said, "My students are telling me that I'm not speaking like a mathematician." (Speak Like a Mathematician is the phrase I use with them for all matters linguistic.) They were all laughing in the background. I finally got what was going on, and said, "Hold on, let me put you on speaker phone here." When I did that, his class erupted in a cheer, which my class could hear, and they were shouting hellos back and forth (although nobody knew who was in each class). They quieted down, and I had them ask me the question - it seems that their teacher said "subtract by 7", and not only did they notice the mistake, they had enough confidence in themselves to call him on it. So I settled it for them, all the kids shouted goodbye to each other, and we went on to an excellent board wars competition.

Later, when talking about it with the other teacher, he told me that he had actually read a problem that said "reduced by 7", but the students swore he said "subtracted by 7" and he decided to play it up for them and call me since he knew I'd been working on it with them. Moments like that are really cool (and potentially powerful), and they can't really be planned out. I love when the last class before a break is a really good one.

p.s.
Does anyone else remember the phrase "anywhere a cat can go"? I still remember it from 7th grade French.

p.p.s
Funny cat videos. My classes loved these for the physical humor. But if you've ever had a cat, you'll see that the cartoonist captures their behavior really well. Enjoy!

Physics is Phun

I don't have the proper hardware to experiment with this, but it looks extremely cool. Check it out: Phun - 2d Physics Sandbox.

Math & Art: Big Numbers

Check out this site. Really cool images.

"Depicts one million plastic cups, the number used on airline flights in the US every six hours."


"Detail at actual print size:"

Divide by Zero?

This is pretty cool. I've never heard of the animated lego genre before, but I guess it's pretty popular. Most of these films are shorts, but some are feature length! Wow..