Okay. It's been over a month since I last wrote a blog post. It's funny. I stopped blogging for a few days because I felt like I had run out of anything to say or share. Then, I kept not blogging because I felt like I had too much to say or share, and I didn't know where to start.
But, I'm back! This past month has been busy, busy, busy. This past week, I finally got my copy of our Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 interactive notebooks up to date, so there should be lots of posts of new foldables and old foldables and lots of fun stuff in the next few days. (My copy of our notebooks was so out of date that my students told me that if I was taking my own class, I would be failing!) I've taken the pictures. I've uploaded the templates to box.com. Now, all I have to do is write the posts. If you don't see them posted in the next few days, feel free to barrage me with e-mails and comments.
About two and a half weeks ago, I had a couple of students draw pictures on their dry erase boards and display them on the wall. The fad has continued, and sometimes I feel like I have my own art museum in my classroom. Pretty soon, I'm not going to have enough boards left for all my students to have one to do work on, though. So, the art museum will have to come down. But, I did take some pictures. And, I thought I'd share these pictures with you. When students take pride in their work and want to display it, it makes me happy. Now, I only need to find a way to make this carry over into mathematics.
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| Sir Tweet started the entire thing. T-Rex is probably the newest edition to the art museum. |
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| After seeing Sir Tweet, another student thought he could do a better job. So, another bird was added to the museum. Debate ensued for days about which bird was better. |
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| The creator of Sir Tweet told me a fictional story one day about a giraffe, an elephant, a boy, and a girl who went on a double date. It was a rather involved story involving going to the movies and traveling to Narnia. Another girl provided this illustration of the story. |
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| I have two students who sometimes come into my room during my planning period to work on homework. Inspired by the picture of the giraffe and elephant's date, they decided to draw a picture of the baby produced by the giraffe and elephant. I tried to explain that this was biologically impossible, but I was told that it was cute and that is the only thing that matters. |
Maybe the reason I am so impressed by my students' artwork is that I am a terrible artist myself. My sister, on the other hand, is an amazing artist. She's currently in college to become an elementary school art teacher. The only drawing I do is to illustrate math problems. (And, to provide comic relief by doing so.) Here's a recent drawing I did while tutoring a student. This student is taking Pre-Calculus/Trig at our local technology center, and they have been working with angle of elevation and angle of depression problems.
Can you tell that is a light house and a boat? I was told that it looks more like a candle and a banana...
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| My Attempt at Illustrating a Math Problem |
