New Unit!

Tomorrow we will be starting a new unit on Similar Shapes.  We will go right into Scale Factor, Proportions, Unit Rates, and Ratios.  This is a great unit; it is one of my favorites!!  Here are a few sites that help students understand what similar figures are:

Beacon Learning Center (This is interactive!)
Power Points

Parent Guide!

Get ready for the Mug Wumps!! =)

2 minutes is a long time!

Today in class we started a new book, Variables and Patterns.  By the end of the book we will be able to match equations to graphs, build equations based on graphs, and complete graphs based on equations.  FUN!  Our lesson today dealt with finding our jumping jack rate and building a chart and coordinate graph from it.  Some students had to do jumping jacks for 2 minutes, someone had to count, and someone had to record numbers every 10 seconds.  My job was to yell out, "RECORD!!!" every 10 seconds.  I am sure our friendly neighbors were wondering what in the world was going on in my classroom! 

Here are a few pictures of 5th period doing the experiment.  Can I also add that I am pretty impressed that I was able to yell record while watching the clock and take pictures.  Multi-tasking at its best.

And, I know that my calendar still says August.  I am HORRIBLE at updating my calendar.  I need to hire someone to do that for me.

If you are wanting to print out coordinate grids for homeworks, click here.  If you need help with graphing coordinate pairs, click here!

Hope you had a wonderful 3-day weekend!!

~Mrs. Denson~

Lovely Wednesday!

I know you are all hard at work on your fractions homework.  I know, they were HUGE numbers!  Believe me, I know... I made the Answer Key!  Don't worry, the problems on the quiz will be much more simplistic.  But, isn't it nice to have homework that is harder than the quiz/test?  It makes the test seem like a breeze!

I had a quick meeting after school today that should have ended really quickly, so I kept tutorials available thinking I would be done within 15 minutes. Well.... that did not happen! :( This is the amazing scene I walked back into:

Blair is my mini me that doesn't look like me at all!  She was helping to make sure that Will and Collin understood the harder problems on the homework.  I just LOVED seeing all 3 of them working together and without someone telling them to do so!  Doesn't that make your day?!

Quiz Friday!  Start quizzing yourself on working fractions and integers without your foldable.  Tomorrow we will go over decimal operations.

~Mrs. Denson~

Fractions!

If you are needing extra help on reducing fractions, adding fractions, multiplying, etc... here is a great website that has it all!

Fraction Help

Remember, when you are adding and subtracting fractions you MUST find a common denominator.  You don't need to when you multiply or divide.  Complete 'around the world' to get rid of mixed numbers before you start your multiplication and division problems.  When you multiply just multiply straight across!  Super simple to remember. 

Say this 10 times and you will never forget how to divide fractions!

'Dividing fractions is as easy as pie, flip the second and multiply!'

Ken.. what??

Have you heard of KenKen?  It is the math version of Sudoku and I love it.  A lot of my students are getting addicted too, which is music to my ears.  Working on math games on their down time, finding the KenKen app on the phone, and taking puzzles to work on later...  Who doesn't love that?!?

If you want to try a puzzle.  Click here and try a smaller puzzle first.  Then, work your way to the harder ones.  6x6 are do-able, but 7x7 and above are difficult!  My head starts to spin at times... lovely.

Side note: Did anyone watch The Emmy Awards tonight?  I was cracking up watching it!  Can't wait for Glee and Modern Family to start back up.  Which reminds me that I need the latest Glee CD for my collection. =)  Target, here I come!

You are a teacher?

I always wondered how my teachers became teachers, and I thought maybe some of my students wonder that as well.  So, here we are!  A new blog post. =)

I actually grew up playing 'school' with my two older sisters all the time.  My mom would buy us chalkboards and grade books, and we would make up lessons and pretend to be in school.  We would have to switch off who would be the teacher and who would be the student.  Interestingly enough, only one of us got our degree in education.  It wasn't me!  My oldest sister, Jennifer, got her degree from Texas A&M and was a high school math teacher for 8 years.  She just had her second boy and is now a busy stay at home mom.  Allison and I went to Texas Tech, Go Red Raiders!!  Allison has her degree in Interior Design and my degree is in Social Work.

This picture was taken in October at Race for the Cure in Dallas.  We participated in celebration of my Grandma and in memory of my Aunt.

Jen is on the left, I am in the middle, and Allison is on the right.

I graduated college in December of 2005 and went to work for Child Protective Services as an Investigator.  It was the job I wanted at the time and I enjoyed getting to work with kids of all ages, but I really enjoyed working my cases that dealt with young teens.  After a year of working there I knew that it wasn't what I wanted to do for years to come.  It was a great first job, but I knew it wouldn't be my career.  I always thought about teaching and I loved going to my sister's school and helping out, so I looked into getting my Teachers Certification.  I left CPS in August of 2007 and began the process of getting my certification.  I was a math tutor for an elementary school in HEB and loved it!  I got my certification and one week later I interviewed and accepted my current position at SMS.  I could not have been more happy!  I attended Smithfield and it was where I wanted to end up teaching.  I am so thankful that there just happened to be an opening at just the right time!  That is a super quick story of how I became a teacher.  There were many things I wanted to do when I was little and teaching was always one of them. 

Can't wait for next week when we get to make my favorite integer foldable!  Next week will be very BUSY.  We have integers (all operations), fractions (all operations), and decimals (all operations).  So much to cover in one week.  Thankfully, it is just a review of what they learned from last year.  We are starting to review during our warm-ups.  It is coming back to everyone!  I can see the light bulbs going off. =)  Which, I love!

Until next time,

~Mrs Denson~

Remember Math?!

I am going to take a wild guess and say that most people didn't do math practice every single day over the summer!  So, here are some great tutorial videos that cover integers and fractions.  Stay tuned for help over conversions of fractions, decimals, and percents!

Welcome!

This is my very first entry for my classroom and I am so excited about starting this blog.  I would love for students and parents to follow this blog so that everyone knows what we are doing in class on a weekly basis.  Plus, I will be putting up more helpful information on concepts and homework questions!  If you can't make tutorials that day, just check the blog!  So, make sure you check my blog for updates to see extra videos on how to solve problems.  I can't wait to get the school year started!

~Mrs. Denson~