Triangle Congruency Foldable

This is a great way to help students with the triangle congruency shortcuts.  They can easily glue it in their notes or stick it in a folder.

Triangle Congruency Foldable

Proofs....Everyone's Favorite Thing to Learn!

Proofs can be tricky- especially when it comes to reasoning through our thoughts.  I have found a great way to help the students begin to reason through proofs is to start simple.  I have used in the past many times this great Proof Envelope Activity.  There are four stations that the students need to complete.  Proofs 1A and 1B go together because they are pretty short.  I have the students work in teams of two but no more than three.  Once the students have them completed, I have them take a picture of the work and put them all in an electronic document of some type.

The next class period I see them, I then give them a few more proofs to work through together in groups.  This time they do not have word banks and have to think through the proofs a little more.

Hope this can make your teaching of proofs a little easier!

Proofs for Envelope Activity

Proofs for next day

Review Game Time!

Sometimes I find it hard to find fun and creative ways to review for tests.  I want something that all the students will participate in as well as something that really reviews them.

I found this Jeopardy Review template online.  It was created by Bill Arcurl from WCSD.  I thank him greatly right now.  I had to do a few modifications to the questions, but it works for me now.  I am thinking that I would be able to split my class into groups and it would work out great.  I have created my game over our Similarity unit for Geometry.  I also think that would be great to use for the Foundations of Geometry- all the fun vocabulary and notations!

Jeopardy

I hope that you enjoy the template.

Since I am always looking for good ways to review and sometimes I feel like I am going the same thing over and over again, anyone care to share some fun review games/ideas?

Composite Area and Tangrams

Area unit is fast approaching and the best way to teach this unit is hands on!  Composite area can sometimes be tricky for students who cannot mental break down the big picture into smaller figures.  So, what better way to learn composite area than with tangrams.

Students start with finding the area of each piece of the tangram set.  Then as they are making the shape with the tangrams, they can just add up the area of the pieces.  Thus they have the composite area.

For this activity, I printed ten sets of tangrams on card stock and five sets of the tangram picture sheets that could be shared between the groups.  I laminated the tangram picture sets because students sometimes feel the urge to write on papers.  I know the tangram pieces won't stay nice for long but should last for a while.

Hope this helps you with composite area!

Tangrams!

Pythagorean Theorem

One of my favorite things to teach in Geometry is triangles.  I do not know what it is about them, but I just think that they are fun and there is so much that you can do with them.

When we covered Pythagorean Theorem, I used some great videos that I wanted to share.

The first video is a great representation of why the Pythagorean Theorem works.  I had a student observer in my room in the fall and he showed me this video.  It is very simple and it works.

One of my favorite opening activities for the following day is to show the Wizard of Oz clip.  I will always be a Kansas girl as heart and love this movie.  But there is a huge mistake in it.  I like to play this clip to see if the students catch the mistake.  You have to play it a few times because the scarecrow says it really fast.

Great Activity for Anything!

I know it has been a long time since I posted….I just do not know where my time went.  The truth about every teachers life.  This year, my resolution is to keep up with my blog more.

To start the year off right, I want to share this hot (since you know it is cold here in Missouri right now) activity with you.  This can be used with any grade and any class really.  The nice thing is, it is a self check activity.  I have done it where they just have to work the problems and follow the activity from problem to problem and I have also done one with riddles.  The riddles is fun, but most my students could guess the riddle after a few problems which defeated the purpose.  If the students get the correct answer, they should start with one problem and hit them all in a certain order.  If they repeat, they made an error.  I typically stand in the hallway with the correct order so that I can easily find the mistake.  As I walk around I also check that they are on the right track.

I have used this activity as a review of the prior days homework, a chapter review, or even final review.  It really fits into anything.  It does take some time to set it up, but once it is ready it is worth it.  Don't worry if you make some errors along the way with it at first, I have done it plenty of times.

Algebra 1 Example- Final Review

Algebra 2 Example- Function Operations

Function Transformations

I just love teaching the functions transformation unit.  It is quick and easy and the students seem to just get it.  For this unit, I am trying something new this year.  I am trying out the flipped classroom concept.  So, their homework is to watch videos and then we do their work in class.  So far, it is just ok.  We will see how it goes.

The best way for the students to really understand transformations is for the kids to actually see the movements of the graphs.  And, if you do it by hand, it can take a while.  So, why not use graphing calculators!!!  Quick, easy, painless.

This activity is formatted in the Cornell Notes fashion.  We are an AVID school so we have a school wide push to use Cornell Notes.  Most like taking them like this, a few just do not like them.  I have activities for Quadratics, Absolute Value, Radicals, and Cubics.  This year, I am teaching Quadratics and Cubics together then Absolute Value and Radicals together.

Enjoy!

Absolute Value Transformations
Quadratic Transformation
Cubic and Radical Transformations