Gearing Up for the Start! Post #1 - Prep Work

I cannot believe that there is only one week left before school begins!  Officially I have to report back to work on Wednesday.  Unofficially…. I've been back on and off for about 2 ½ weeks now.  Some summer in the future I'll have enough planned and ready that I'll have at least a month where I don't have to think about school :).  Not so right now…  But that's okay, because I love everything that I've been putting together in my classroom and with my two new 8th grade math teachers!!

Here are some things I've been working on:

1. Getting supplies purchased and put together;
2. Organizing thoughts from Minds on Mathematics (book study);
3. Decorating (obviously…);
4. Creating a "Math Around the World" bulletin board and notebook;
5. Math Survival Guides (woo-hoo!!!!), aka interactive notebooks;
6. Lesson plans;
7. I'm sure there is more and I'm just not thinking of them right now… :).

I'll be posting lots more soon on all of these topics - with pictures!

One of the things I've done is to create little notes that I'm going to laminate and tape into my plan book with reminders about all of the awesome prompts that I were in Minds on Mathematics (Wendy Ward Hoffer).  A huge shout out to Melanie from Confessions of a Grade 6 Math Addict who originally created these and allowed for sharing.  I've tweaked mine some, but I loved her outlines and colors.  I think these will be great reminders to me for class discussions and reflection time in the MSGs.  

(Okay… totally cool… this is the first time I've figured out how to embed a .pdf file in my blog.  Here's the website I used.)

Speaking of plan books… I was on Pinterest the other day (can you say LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!!) and came across a pin about teacher plan books from Erin Condren.  Now, I am pretty fussy about my calendar.  I use Outlook on my computer because I get a lot of meeting appointments sent my way electronically, but I'm still an old-fashioned, big picture girl.  I like to see the long term plan ahead of me, so usually a two-page monthly calendar (with lines) is what I like to have.  Our planners at school are great (and free…), but they are a little smaller than what I'd like.  I'm also not particularly fond of spending a huge amount of money when I can create something myself.  However….. with all of the checklists I'd like to have after reading Minds on Math this summer, as well as a host of other things, I tried to weigh the time it would take me to make my own versus purchasing one of these.  They are so darned cute I'll bet you can imagine what I did :).  Yep… I bought one.  I'm so excited and it's totally personalized.  I guess that means no pedicure before school starts...

Minds on Mathematics - Chapter 5 (Discourse)

This is a key chapter in the text, because without constructive and meaningful discourse among students, a math workshop will not be successful.  My favorite quote in this chapter is, "When students are engaged as learners, sharing, discussing, and evaluating one another's thinking in a mutually supportive (emphasis mine) setting, they are constructing their own understanding of the concepts at hand".  I love this… It's difficult to do, but if you can, the math that will be happening in the classroom will be wonderful!

Hoffer contends that discourse:

1. Engages learners - students want to talk to each other.  Working together gets them excited.
2. Promotes understanding - it helps students explain their reasoning and talk over ideas.
3. Develop communication and collaboration skills - they need to know how to work together.
4. Supports academic language development - students need to know, understand, and use the vocabulary.

In order to promote discourse there needs to be an atmosphere of respect in the classroom.  Students need to feel welcome to share ideas or questions.  I really liked the prompts that are listed on pg. 76 - 77 and I plan to post them in my room.

This chapter holds a wealth of information on discourse, all of which I really enjoyed.  I'll have to read it again and figure out what I missed the first time, but all the ideas are easily implemented and worthwhile.