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It’s time for a new volume of Monday Must Reads! I don’t need to write a blog post telling you how crazy life is at the moment. I’m currently on Week 2 of an extended 3 Week Spring Break due to COVID-19. We’ll be (digitally) returning to school on April 6th. Given that this decision was just made official today, I still don’t know what this will look like.
Usually, this is the time of year where I start thinking about next year. But there are still so many unknowns that I don’t even have the energy to really do that. I was hoping to have what I’m teaching next year nailed down soon, but now I just don’t know when that will happen. To get my mind off all the unknowns, I’ve decided to spend some of my new-found time writing up some Monday Must Reads posts from the tweets I’ve been saving this school year.
I just checked and I haven’t posted a Monday Must Reads since August. Where has the time gone?!? Oh yeah, it’s this thing called balancing being a wife, mom, and teacher all at the same time. Every time I start to think I have this working parent thing figured out, my adorable kiddo moves on to a new stage that totally changes things all over again. Our current stage? Crawling and getting into EVERYTHING.
So without further ado, let’s check out the awesomeness of math teacher twitter of late. Hopefully, you will find an idea or two that you want to use next time you are able to be back in your classroom. Yes, I realize it’s not actually Monday. I hope you’ll forgive me. Having not been to work in a week and a half, I don’t really keep track of the days of the week anymore…
Unit Circle Pizzas
Anna Xu shares up a yummy lesson featuring unit circle pizzas.
Number Snake Puzzles
Matt Enlow shares a resource for all you puzzle lovers: Number Snakes!
Ceiling Tile Art
Looking for a way to spiff up your math classroom? Check out these Ceiling Tile Tesselations from Mrs. Woldum.
Self-Checking Desmos Activities
I am a HUGE fan of these self-checking Desmos Geometry/Trig activities from Jennifer White!
Tissue Box Project
This Tissue Box Project from Alisa Hobgood looks like a lot of fun. I especially like the side where students have to add a selfie of themselves in front of an object shaped like their parent function.
Pi Day Graphing Project
I also am a fan of this calculus-based pi day graphing project that Alisa shared.
DIY Stats Cartoons
Attention: Stats Teachers! Check out this project to make your own stats cartoons from Allison Horst!
Geometric Series Art
Daniel Martinez shares some beautiful student work in regards to geometric series.
Calculus Cross Section Models
Whitney Nolan shares a way to add some arts and crafts to your calculus curriculum.
Distributive Property Art
Looking for a creative way to assess student understanding of the distributive property? Check out this task from M Felipe.
Trig Dice Activity
I can’t wait for next year’s Trig/Pre-Calc class to try out Laura Vogel‘s Build Your Own Trig Function Activity involving dice.
Extra Credit Memes
Allison Kipping inspires with this extra credit project where students created memes to demonstrate understanding of the current chemistry topic.
Desmos Mazes
Ron King shares a fun Desmos Challenge – create a maze!
Chemistry Magnets
I may not be teaching chemistry any more, but Anne Schmidt‘s twitter account is giving me ALL the ideas. I love these magnets for teaching chemistry. What type of math magnets could I make?!?
Stop Motion Math Concepts
Collaborative Genius shares the great idea of having students make stop-motion gifs to illustrate math concepts.
Number Neighborhoods
Check out this new math(s) game called NUMBER NEIGHBOURHOODS (UPDATED LINK!) from David Butler!
Easter Egg Regression
Lisa Richardson shares a great, Easter-themed regression activity involving eggs.
Visualizing Rotations
Jennifer Halstead shares an crafty way to help students visualize rotations around an axis in calculus.
Mathematician Bracket
Liz Mastalio shares a most interesting mathematician bracket that she uses with her students. Super fun way to fit some math history into your classroom!
Student Birthdays
This year, I really tried to put an emphasis on student birthdays. But it was sometimes a pain to look them up in our online gradebook system. I love this idea from Mrs. Caputo of having students write their birthdays on a calendar at the beginning of the year. Consider this idea stolen!
Quadratics Open Middle Task
We don’t really use the term “stationary point” in the US, but I still like this Open Middle task from Dan Walker. I’m going to adapt it for my Algebra 2 students to say “has a vertex as ( __, __).
Until next time, keep sharing your awesome ideas!
Want even more ideas? I suggest checking out previous volumes of Monday Must Reads!
Molly G.
Sunday 19th of April 2020
The distributive property assessment: Why have I never seen this before!? Thank you for sharing!
Nancy in Indiana
Friday 27th of March 2020
It's wonderful to hear from you again, Sarah! We just started online learning Wednesday, and it's actually gone quite smoothly. Just do what you can and be kind to yourself. Balancing motherhood, marriage, and teaching is tough even in normal circumstances. Give yourself lots of grace, and give the little guy a virtual, germ-free hug from me!