Distance Floor and Desk Activities

Yesterday, all teachers did walk-arounds.  During our planning period, we met as a group and were given two lesson plans for classrooms to visit.  Each group consisted of about 3 teachers and at least one administrator.  Eight teachers volunteered to open their classrooms for observations, including me!
My purpose statement was to "use the floor activity to develop understanding of how to use Pythagorean Theorem to find distances on a coordinate plane".  After my students completed and turned in their bellwork, they joined me at the back of my room where I had taped the axes on the floor.

I used pre-planned coordinates for my students to graph.  Two points created a vertical line, two created a horizontal line and two created a diagonal line.  In the discussion, my students decided they could count spaces for a vertical or horizontal line, but not a diagonal.  Then, I mentioned the Pythagorean Theorem and had them discuss in their groups what they remembered about it.  After their discussions, we created a right triangle and they solved for the diagonal line.  We did a couple other examples.

After that, they went back to their tables and used them to graph their given points and find the distance on paper between the two points.  I taped their two-students tables down the middle before school, so I used that for the x-axis.  The y-axis was the crack where the two tables met.  The day before, I discretely made tick marks with permanent marker and labeled the axes.

I taught 6 classes, with at least 6 groups each and DID NOT TAKE A SINGLE PICTURE!!!!!! UGH!!!! So today, in anticipation for this blog post, I chose a couple examples and staged pics.  I was just so wrapped up in the excitement of my students learning and my fellow teachers observing that I didn't even remember I had my phone in my pocket!

 This is the best year I've had at my current school!  I loved working with some teachers/math coach/literacy coach/admin!  My math coach emailed me, principal texted me and literacy coach put a note in my mailbox!

Sorting Triangles Pre-Assessment

I have used the basics of this activity as an individual activity as well as a pair activity.  In the individual activity, each student received a copy of the sorting template and the 7 different types of triangles.  The sorting template was a half sheet that would be glued into their interactive notebooks.  They had to write in the two categories in which they would sort the 7 words and glue those onto the sorting template.  I would check their work before gluing it down, but some students glued first.

The pair activity was more successful with my students.  I only had to print and cut out 15-20 sets.  If they were laminated, they would last longer.  If not, students frequently wrote what they thought to be the correct answer on them.  Being a class set, this required me to reprint and recut to replace messed up sets or ones with lost pieces.

As I began planning for the upcoming school year, I found Google Classroom and digital interactive notebooks.  I knew this was for me because I love introducing my students to new useful technologies and it would save large amounts of money used in buying the paper, glue, tape, etc.

Students would work in pairs and decide which two categories into which these 7 words can be separated.  Each student would be responsible for completing their own activity even though they are working together.  Students will drag and drop each of the 7 words into the correct category.  Once that is done as a pair, students are to write their own reflection, explaining their reasoning.