Middle School Math Moments (now Cognitive Cardio Math)

Happy Wednesday! I've been working on reorganizing my classroom (again!) What are you working on? An InLinkz Link-up

I wish I had started reading The Together Teacher earlier in the summer so I would have had more time to work on all the things that I needed to begin/restart/refresh, etc. I'm reading along (for the most part!) with Kelly at An Apple for the Teacher to find new ways to become more organized (some of these ways, I have discovered, are strategies I used to use, but for some reason had forgotten about).  Chapter 10 focuses on creating stations to help the classroom run smoothly. This includes stations such as: your teaching station, entry and exit ways, student mailboxes, an anchor board, distribution center, the "paper pantry," the "materials pantry," classroom calendar, classroom libraries, and classroom jobs. The chapter even includes some organizational information for how to keep track of these types of things if you are a mobile teacher. There are quite a few helpful ideas in this chapter which make me want to run into my classroom and change things. I ...

Happy Wednesday! An InLinkz Link-up

I tend to read a few books at a time, so while I'm reading The Together Teacher , I have also started rereading Organized Simplicity: The Clutter-Free Approach to Intentional Living by Tsh Oxenreider. The premise of this book is not that people should get rid of all belongings and live in a hut, but that people should create a life that is as simple as possible, so that all of their time is not spent running around and managing all of the things they possess. Instead, they should spend time enjoying relationships with loved ones and on the things that truly matter to them. It reinforces the idea that life should not be spent spinning our wheels, running to an unlimited number of events/commitments, or trying to make more money to be able to have more things. This book has me thinking a lot more about the number of things I have in my house. Now, I don't go on shopping sprees, I don't buy lots of decorative-type stuff for my house....I don't even buy all that many clo...

This week (and last week, and next week, and the week after), I am working on being more healthy! This mostly applies to my food choices, because I do a good job of working out regularly (except for the couple of weeks this summer when various parts of my lower body took turns rebelling against me....I may have been working out too much...) Anyway, junk food always tempts me, so I'm working on making healthier choices, and I've been pretty successful during this past week. Wish me luck for the coming weeks and please link up below!   An InLinkz Link-up

In the "Thought Catcher" chapter of The Together Teacher (chapter 4) , the author mentioned specific examples of using thought catchers in regards to students: to monitor/record feedback, which could then be used when writing progress reports, or to record thoughts targeting specific writing skills.  This led me to think about using something like this for the Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practices.  So, I made a chart with student names and the math practices; but....I'm not entirely sure how I'll use it yet..as a check mark system or to jot notes (there's not a whole lot of room for that, unless I redo it with fewer students per page). But, I thought I'd share anyway:) Click to download