Day 80: Happiness on Finals day

Day 76: Merry Christmas, Children

I made all the children cookies. That's a lot of cookies.

Day 75: Can I take a picture?

I put up the homework answers.

"Miss, can I take a picture?"

"Sure."

Then this happens. :)

Day 74: Winter Extravaganza

Watching lots of my kids in their element is one of my favorite things.

Day 72: Sometimes we're silly

After their test we had some extra time, so we took a quiz about Ms. H. :) Most got 3/5.

Day 70: More Christmas

My kids are so sweet. :)

Seriously, why wouldn't you wear tacky Christmas sweaters.

Day 69: More Trig Graphing Practice

A couple of days just wasn't enough graphing time. More time next year is a necessity.

Day 68: Trig Transformation

I gave them a lot of information about trig graphs and how to change them. They could write about it, but they didn't know what it looked like when something changed. Next year, I definitely want them to use Desmos more to see the graphs change and have the kids physically draw them as well. I did not have them do that enough, and I think it affected their understanding.

Day 67: Christmas Trees

I love Christmas. Like a lot. This year I decided that I would have 2 small Christmas trees in my classroom and two at home in my one bedroom apartment. I realize that I'm crazy.

Then I found these and it only got worse better.

So, what I decided to do was let the kids decorate the tree every day. The kids (yes, even the boys) were quite excited about decorating my tree with princess ornaments. I let a different class decorate the tree each day.

What I realized is this is something that most of them may not have ever participated in. At my house, Christmas was always a big deal. We decorated the tree as a family every year. My brother and I fought over who got to put the star on the tree when we were little. In my classroom, we're a family. I love them like a mom, and I am doing things with them that I think are important and meaningful, even when it has nothing to do with math. Most of their families don't do things together. A lot of them would rather be at school than at home. So we decorate the tree together, and my 18 year olds can't get enough.

Day 66: Sine and Cosine graphs

After having the kids graph sine and cosine, I realized they probably should have done that a lot sooner. They needed a visual to help them process sine and cosine better. First, I had them write out the coordinates using the unit circle, then they graphed the points.

Day 65: Inverse Trig in Real Life

Today, we found angles using the height of buildings and the lengths of planes. Some of the distances could be googled and some of them had to be estimated. The kids had to think through where/how they might figure out certain information.

Overall, I realized I needed to be clearer with what the expected product was. I had some really great ones and some really terrible ones. I think the terrible ones could have been less terrible with better instructions.

Here's a few of the good ones.

Here's a couple that demonstrate the misconceptions they still have.