Monday Must Reads: Volume 22

Happy Monday! I absolutely adore the time I spend each week putting together new volumes of Monday Must Reads. Throughout the week, I stumble on so many great ideas on twitter, and I always make sure to hit the like button. But, I find that by the end of the week, I’ve already forgotten these awesome ideas. The act of going through my likes once per week and summarizing them in this manner is a great time for reflecting on what I would like to change in my classroom/do in the future.

Here are this week’s Must Reads!

Christmas Transformations Activity

Dave shares some fun Christmas activities which practice transformations. These are adorable and make me wish I was teaching geometry so I could use them. He has graciously uploaded the files on TES to be downloaded for free!

Related Rates Experiment

Teaching calculus and need an idea to make related rates come alive? Andrew Wille has you covered.

Trial and Error Puzzle

Cass Lowry shares an interesting puzzle from AAMT2017 that only requires the use of five digits.

Acting out the Bridges of Konigsberg

You also need to check out this idea by Cass Lowry. Act out the Bridges of Konigsberg problem using plastic cones!

Combining Like Terms Dot Game

Jzitzka offers up a new-to-me activity for practicing combining like terms. I used to love the dot game as a kid, so I can see my students really getting into this

Sierpinski Pyramid with Straws and Pipe Cleaners

Mark Kaercher combines straws and fuzzy sticks (pipe cleaners) to create a giant sierpinski pyramid. How awesome is this?!?

Mark posts some great illustrated instructions for doing this yourself below:

Lab Based Test Questions

Jen Winne inspires with the idea of including lab-based questions on tests. This is #scienceteachergoals.

Compound Inequalities Treasure Hunt

Amanda Atkinson shares some ideas for engaging students after finishing an assessment. The Star Wars System of Equations Problem was featured in last week’s volume of Monday Must Reads. The Compound Inequalities Treasure Hunt is a new one for me. I’ll definitely be adapting this for my inequalities unit next year.

Substitution Highlighting Strategy

Liz Mastalio makes brilliant use of a highlighter when teaching solving systems by substitution.

Graph Paper Hack

Another great math teacher hack from Liz Mastalio: print tasks involving graphing ON graph paper.

Systems of Equations Holiday Project

Ms. Kuney shares the results of what looks to be a fun holiday-themed systems of equations project.

Concentric Circle Area Puzzle

Mark Chubb poses an interesting problem involving the area of concentric circles.

Snowflake WODB

Ilona Vashchyshyn shares a winter-themed WODB problem.

Vertical Alignment Activity

Amie Albrecht shares a great activity for sparking discussions regarding vertical alignment. We need to be aware of what students are doing before they enter our class and what they will be doing after they leave our class.

Panda Cubes

I’ve blogged before about using Panda Squares with my students. But, how did I not know that David Butler had also created Panda Cubes?!?

Christmas Tree Drawing Puzzle

Halcyon Foster shares a holiday-themed brain teaser. I always find these kinds of puzzles to be a bit tricky! Be sure to check out the other Mathvent postings here!

Where the L Puzzle

Inspired by the puzzles I’ve been typing up for my classroom, Sarah Witt has started to do the same. Check out this awesome puzzle from Jumbo Book of Puzzles: The Ultimate Collection that Sarah typed up! She has uploaded the file here for you to download and print for your classroom.

Until next week, keep sharing!