Minds+On

Minds On
My AT has brainteasers on the back table that students can come and grab if they want to try them. I think this is a great idea! It keeps the students, who finished their work early, thinking... and is completely optional for the students that don't want to do them. The only issue with my AT's system is that there's an incentive program in place. It's actually classroom-wide. And I actually really hate it. My AT has fake currency which he prints and gives to students for behaving well and doing their work. He charges them to go to the bathroom if they go too often, and they have to pay rent for their desks and chairs. The first 5 students to complete the challenge get fake money. I literally saw one student come to grab the challenge from the back table, but when she heard that 5 students had already solved it, she immediate put it back. I told her she could still try it for fun, and she's like, "no, there's no point". It was terrible to see. In summary, I think the strategy of optional brainteasers is awesome... but it's current incarnation in this classroom is a disaster. It's killing curiosity and creativity at a rate which is observable. Aren't the teasers repetitive? You could always say that they can practice and next time *they* can be the faster ones. Is anyone really trying except for the 5 top ones? :) My AT is using them for energizers. But I can see big potential problems with the incentive system. If a student is really getting behind, for whatever reason, is their chair and desk going to be taken away from them before going into debt? :) (Doina)
 * The Teacher Challenge (Nathan)**

Reading a Math Story (Liz) Today, I read the Math Curse to the class and as I was reading I could see that each student got a different experience from the book. Some were only able to follow the story. Others... began to focus on the math on the various pages. However, the most positive result... there were a few chuckles... just too prove how COOL math can actually be ;) And after the roars were over (okay, maybe not roars), we hit them with the Prime and Operations math equivalency test. Reading the book about math, took the students mind off their fears about math and allowed students to focus on the task at hand. This for my AT, was fantastic as this test really sets the stage to find out which level each students math ability is currently at. To know our starting point, the AT is then able to prepare strategies to get out class up to the same speed and to achieve our final goal of completing the entire curriculum for both Grade 7 and 8.

Attached below are the links to the above books, if you are interested. [] []

Jon Scieszka also has a great book for Science, called the Science Verse.

**Energizer/transition (Brian) ** I found this activity both useful as a minds on/energizer/transition. It is quite simple, have to the students move about the classroom looking for answers to the questions in the chart (see attached pdf). They need to ask a different person for every question, then put the answer and the person's name in the box. You could use this activity for any subject to invoke discussion ...{ just be careful of the sock question ... (hint: you need somewhere to put your foot ... lol).}

This sounds like fun, my AT used something similar. One question, though, what is the answer to the left bottom corner question?

What is the formula for the area? :) (Doina)