Numbers About Me Activity

This year, as a getting to know you activity, I had students complete a half-sheet entitled “Numbers about Me.”  Well, actually, the paper said “Numbers about __________________________,” and students had to write their names in the blank.  This Numbers About Me Activity was the perfect closing activity for the second day after my students had participated in the Marshmallow Challenge.

Students were supposed to write five numbers that had special meaning to them and tell me the significance that number had in their lives.  I was shocked by the number of freshman I had that did not know the meaning of the word “significance.”

Last year, I had students do this on the first page of their interactive notebooks, but I didn’t get a chance to read them until the first time I collected notebooks to grade.  This way, I was able to engage each student in a conversation about one of their important numbers as I circulated the classroom and picked up the completed activity.  

Some responses were quite interesting, but I’m pretty sure nothing could top my Algebra 2 student who predicted the date he would die as one of his important numbers…

Now that we are seven days into the school year, I need to pull these back out and re-read them!  This time, I should be able to put a face with the name…