Tower Building Challenge
We have done this activity for a few years now, and students really love it. We normally don't do the activity on the first day of school, but our school decided that we needed to do a "WOW" activity so students wouldn't go home thinking, wow this middle school sure is boring and all they care about is rules. We do love our rules though LOL. A few years back, we talked about doing this activity and what it entailed to do it. I basically cut up a few peoples versions of this activity and combined them into one. I created a packet that students would get and instructions for the facilitator to follow. I did the full activity for the first year, but after that I cut out a few things because prep time was a lot. This year, I slimmed it down even more. Click here for the activity.
Here are some pictures of the towers that were built.
Here are some pictures of the towers that were built.
First Week of Class Activity
I borrowed this from Math = Love, which is no surprise I found something cool from her blog. I did this last year and the other teachers on my department also do this with their students. We hang up the 4 posters with questions on it. We give each student 4 post it and they answer the questions. I give them the option to give their name on the back if they want. Each class gets a different color of post its so I can tell from what class they were from. I ran out of time on three of my classes that day, so only three completed it. I went through and read the post its as I pulled them off to see what they answered.
First Day Assignments
I saw a post on Pinterest about giving out "Parent Homework" on the first day of school instead of student HW. So I decided to give it a whorl. I had my agenda on the screen and at the bottom, it said pass out Parent/Student HW. I did pass out the parent homework, but I also passed out a paper that was for students to complete a Mathematical Autobiography about themselves. I had about 100% complete the student assignment, maybe because they had some time in class, but as for the parent HW, that was probably around 20% completion. I did get a lot of letters back that were very informative of their students. Many have helped us understand some of our students better. I am going to do the parent HW next year, but I might add an incentive for students if their parent completes it so maybe they will bug their parent to do it. I'd like to have over 50% next year.
Click here for a copy of the Mathematical Autobiography and and here for the Parent Homework.
Click here for a copy of the Mathematical Autobiography and and here for the Parent Homework.