0 Creative Minds

I teach some creative minds.  Evidence below.

While grading notebooks, I ran across this title: "vaostgaotvyasfotssotes"

It was in the notebook of one of my eighth graders.  And, his sister is one of my statistics students.  Curious, I asked her about it.  "Does your brother speak any other languages?"  "No, why?"  "Well, I found this cryptic word in his notebook, and I've been trying to decipher it."  She took a look at it, and she was as confused as I was.  Curiosity piqued, she took a picture of the page to ask her brother about.

Mystery solved.  My student took the first letter from each word on one page of our notebook and used those letters to create a new "word."  That's something I would never have thought of doing!

Creative Notebook Page Title

Another one of my eighth grade Algebra 1 students came up with a creative way to raise her hand:

Creative Hand-Raising Technique

If you've been around my blog much at all, you know that we do a lot of cutting, gluing, folding, and coloring.  One day, I was going around the room and picking up paper scraps while my students were working.  One of my students was quite adamant that I was not allowed to throw away her paper scraps?  Why?  Because she was saving them for a special project.

A couple of weeks ago, she finished this special project.  She saved her paper scraps all first semester, and she used those scraps to fashion a hat.  I cropped down the picture to protect the identity of my student, but I hope this gives you an idea of what it looked like.  I was most impressed!  She wore her hat around the school proudly for the entire day!

Paper Scrap Hat

Last week, I had a student come in my classroom carrying this box.  Can I leave this box in your room?  Sure.

Empty Box

Curious, I waited to see what would become of this box.  None of my theories were correct.

The box was soon spotted walking down the hall.  I had to stop and take a picture.

Student walking down hall in box

Thanks to the guidance and directions of a friend, the box made its way downstairs to the cafeteria.

Student walking down stairs in box.

Soon after its departure, the box made its way back to my room for some modifications: eye holes!  A face was drawn on the box before it departed once again for the cafeteria.

Box Modifications: Eye holes and face

On our last Algebra 1 test, students were asked to draw a mapping diagram that was not a function.  Then, they were to explain WHY their mapping diagram was not a function.  I had several students draw mapping diagrams that were definitely not functions.  But, they wrote no explanation at all, so I had to count them wrong.

Not A Function

Not A Function

One of my favorite parts of being is a teacher is that I never know what to expect from my students.  These past few weeks have been no exception!