Math = Love

Happy Thanksgiving! I know I have so much to be thankful for this year. One thing I'm thankful for is that not a day goes by where my students don't make me laugh. So, I think it's only fitting to share some things teenagers say today. :)

Satan always tempts children. [Then, we had to discuss how the letters needed to reflect the numbering of the quadrants...]

Adults sometimes tickle children.

All selfies; too cute.

All sisters talk crap.

Aliens sometimes take cows.

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Note to self. Don't wear all black to school. Your students will ask all sorts of crazy questions?

Student 1: Why are you wearing all black today? Did your cat die?
Me: [Sigh] I don't own a cat.
Student 1: Well, you don't own a cat now. It died.
Student 2: Guys, maybe her plant died. Maybe that's why she's wearing all black.

In another class:

Why are you wearing all black Did you run over a cat on your way to school? I bet you left your house dressed all colorfully like you normally are. Then, you ran over a cat and went back to your house to put on black clothes in mourning.

Student 1: I know why you're wearing all black. You're actually a werewolf.

Student 2: Wait - Ms. Hagan can't be a werewolf. She doesn't eat meat.

Student 1: She must be a vegewolf, then.

Student: Can you PEMDAS this for me?

Me: What?!?

Student: Oh, I meant can you DESMOS this for me?
Me: Of course! :)

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Sure. My number is 918-BACK-OFF.

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Student 1: If I buy you a cat can I have an A?

Student 2: What if I buy you three cats, could I have an A?

Student 3: What if I buy you a boyfriend?

Student 4: What if I buy you a plant?

Student: Did you meet your boyfriend at church?

Me: No.

Student: Well, that means you can't marry him then.

Pi Girl is mean.

Would you still love me if I had ebola?

Stop "Not Yetting" and start writing "Almost There."

I just got strangled by a ghost in Ms. Hagan's class.

Do you know what my dad calls people who don't eat meat? Un-American

A misdemeanor isn't THAT bad.

I sent a girl a direct message on twitter. I told her that I had looked through her insta photos, and it looked like she was suffering from a lack of Vitamin "ME."

Your patience is really short right now. I think you should lengthen it.

If you were an angle, you'd be an acute one.

She ain't Chef Boyardee or Paula Deen.

I hope the desk breaks and he breaks his pelvis bone.

I've got chemistry on my hand.

If you're wondering why I wrote "elims" on my homework, it's "smile" spelled backwards.

Wow Ms. Hagan. You have a good mind. Sometimes.

Wow, in five years, you're going to be 30!

Student 1: Look at Ms. Hagan, all bundled up.

Student 2: Yeah, she's like a little vegan burrito over there.

Do you know what? I've never seen an ugly twin in my life. I wonder if they even exist.

I hate twins. [Said by a twin.]

I saw that homework you're going to give us today. And, I want to punch you in the forehead because of it.

Hi guys. I am so behind in posting stuff from this school year. So, so, soooooooo behind.

Here's what Unit 2 ended up looking like in my trig class. I posted Unit 1 back in September. Unit 1 was mainly a review of algebra and geometry. Unit 2 was the start of actual trigonometry! Yay!

Our geometry standards include basic right triangle trig, but I've found that my students' experience with this topic is greatly lacking. They remember learning SOHCAHTOA, but they never really did know what they were doing. It's been so fun to teach them trig from the beginning and see the light bulbs start to go off. "Oh, this is what we were supposed to do in geometry! Why didn't they ever tell us it was this simple?!?"

Before I introduced my students to the basic trig ratios, I wanted to make sure we were all on the same page when it came to naming the parts of a right triangle. My students had a hard time wrapping their minds around the difference between the adjacent side and the opposite side for some reason.

We made a simple three-door foldable with the formulas for sine, cosine, and tangent.

Inside the flaps:

My students referenced this foldable A LOT! In fact, they're still referencing during our unit on the unit circle.

Thanks to Meg, I learned about the song Gettin' Triggy Wit It by WSHS on YouTube.

If you haven't seen this video, stop everything and watch it now. I'll even be nice and embed it for you. :)

My students enjoyed the video the first time we watched it, but they had a hard time understanding a few of the lyrics. So, I printed the lyrics off for them the next day to glue in their interactive notebooks. In the future, I would print these off and have students draw example problems on the paper as they watched it.

The page unfolds to show the rest of the lyrics.

One of my students apparently got in trouble by the cheerleading coach for dancing like the students in the video. She was told that the dance moves were inappropriate... Of course she threw me under the bus and said "Well my math teacher taught it to me."

Now that we knew how to find the basic trig ratios, it was time to start thinking about radians.

I don't ever remember really learning what a radian was when I took trig in high school. I'm sure my teacher told me, but I guess it didn't really stick. We're going to be dealing with radians a lot, and I decided I didn't want my students to flip out every time radians were mentioned.

Naturally, I turned to google. Let's just say I am a frequent google user. Some people in town refer to me as "Google Girl" because I use google so much. :)

SEARCH: "What is a radian?"

I quickly found a great discovery activity that involved circles and pipe cleaners and tracing and cutting and folding paper and basically everything I love and adore in life.

I would link you to the actual activity I used, but I actually ended up combining what I liked from five or six different resources.

Step 1: Raid your kitchen cabinets for every circular lid you can find.

Step 2: Instruct each student to pick a lid when they enter the classroom.

Step 3: Trace your lid onto colored paper.

Step 4: Cut out the circle. Fold it in fourths to find the center.

Step 5: Mark the center of the circle.

Step 6: Cut a pipe cleaner the same length as the radius of the circle.

Apparently, pipe cleaners are now called "fuzzy sticks." What is up with that?!?

Step 7: Draw in the radius on the circle. Line up the pipe cleaner with the edge of the radius.

Step 8: Start wrapping the pipe cleaner around the circumference and marking where it stops.

Step 9: Divide the circle into sections based on your markings.

If students have attended to precision, They should end up with 6 equal sized sections plus a tiny left over section.

Glue the circle in your notebook.

Define a radian as the angle that has an arc length equal to the radius of the circle.

I wasn't planning on this, but my students decided we needed to glue our pipe cleaners to the radius. They turned out looking pretty cool!

We wrote in the definition of a radian.

Then, we set about figuring out just how many degrees are in a radian. If there were just the six equal sized sections, how many degrees would a radian be? 360 degrees divided by 6 is 60 degrees. But, there are six sections AND a little section, so each section must be less than 60 degrees.

We decided to set up a proportion to determine just how many degrees are in a radian. Okay. Let's be honest. It was my idea to do this, not my students' idea. But, they did go along with it, so I guess it still counts. At least, that's what I'm telling myself. ;)

Before we could set up a proportion involving radians, we needed to review the formula for circumference of a circle. When I asked my trig students for the formula for circumference, they gave me the formula for area of a circle. They told me that "pi r squared" was the only circle formula that they knew... #sigh

When looking for information online regarding teaching radians, I ran across a song to sing that features the formula for circumference of a circle. There's just something about song that helps me remember things. And, I assume that some of my students are like that, too. They decided we should write the lyrics for the circumference song in our notebooks. It's a simple song set to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star: "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Circumference equals 2 pi r." Isn't that the most brilliant thing you've ever heard in your life?!?

They remembered from geometry and our geometry review earlier in the year that a circle is equivalent to 360 degrees. And, the circumference of a circle is 2*pi*r. We eventually found that a radian is approximately 57.296 degrees.

I'm hoping that this activity helps my students to never fear when the word radian appears.

After learning what a radian was, it was time to learn how to convert between radians and degrees. We made a much-referenced foldable over this.

Outside of Radians to Degrees and Degrees to Radians Foldable:

Inside of Foldable:

Close up of radians to degrees notes/examples:

Close up of degrees to radians notes/examples:

The next page is one of my favorites. If I'm I may have created this page in order to have an excuse to use a brad in our notebooks. Does that sound like a crazy thing to do? It probably is. It's definitely a long story...

I had students cut out the initial side and terminal side for their angle out of card stock. The initial side was glued down on the x-axis. The terminal side of the angle was attached to the paper with a brad. Apparently, these are called "paper fasteners" in other countries.

Once students had constructed their handy, dandy, spinny angle page, I asked each student to move their terminal side to form a 45 degree angle. Then, I instructed them to take a look at the angle formed by their neighbor. They soon realized that some students had made their 45 degree angle in the first quadrant, and others had made their angles in the fourth quadrant. This led to an awesome discussion.

We added notes to our page regarding how to graph positive/negative angles.

I had the bright idea to make a card sort for my students over coterminal angles. They were going to write the definition of coterminal angles. Then, I was going to give them a page with all kinds of angle measures. They would sort them into groups that were coterminal with one another. Then, they would take a blank square and write an additional angle that was coterminal with the other angles in the group.

This. Did. Not. Go. Well.

And, I'm not really sure why.

Next up, some pretty boring notes about reference angles. Sorry, nothing exciting on this page.

I stole the bowtie idea off of pinterest.

The last standard for students in this unit was to be able to find the trig ratio of angles formed by various ordered pairs.

I think I could have done a better job of writing out these steps. Maybe next time I teach trig I will make these steps clearer...

We took a piece of graph paper and folded it into a poof book. This let us fit three practice problems onto our page. I let students pick ordered pairs for the class to work with. I would choose the quadrant, and students could pick any ordered pair in that quadrant. This prevented all of our examples from being in the first quadrant.

First Quadrant Example:

Second Quadrant Example:

Third Quadrant Example:

Want to download the files from this unit? Click here.

I'm thinking that maybe I should rename "Things Teenagers Say" to "Chronicles of the Crazy Cat Lady Who Doesn't Actually Own a Cat" or something like that...

You know things are bad when a reporter spends a day in your classroom, and your students tell said reporter about the fact that you are a crazy cat lady. The reporter then asks the students just how many cats you own. Zero. Confusion follows. Confusion and laughter.

Student: Can we go to the fake wedding?

Me: I was really planning on us doing a math lesson today.

Student: But, I hear there's going to be cats in the goodie bags.

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Written on the cover of a student's algebra notebook:

Satan's Class... Welcome to Hell!

#soloved

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You're right. I'm wrong. Let's eat pie.

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If you DM every girl in the state of Oklahoma, no one is going to date you.

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You're the only mean teacher in this school.

And, this is what I get for insisting we do math instead of watching a movie on the last two days before Thanksgiving Break...

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Your definition of fun and our definition of fun are not the same.

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Ms. Hagan, you won't live past the age of 25 if you give us homework on your birthday.

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Student 1: Tuck your shirt in. You look like a hillbilly.
Student 2: No he doesn't. He looks snazzy.

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Ms. Hagan, you're a mathaholic. You need rehab.

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I always knew Pi Girl was a villain.

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Student 1: Ms. Hagan, I saw something at the store, and it made me think of you. So, I took a picture of it. Do you want to see it?

Me: Sure. I'd love to know what made you think of your math teacher in the store.

Student 1: It's a baby onesie. If you had a baby, I would totally buy this onesie for them. It has a cat on it, and it says, "Meow's it going?"

Student 2: Wouldn't it be better to get Ms. Hagan's baby a mathematical onesie? A onesie with a fraction on it would be adorable! I wonder if they make those...

You should do the right thing and date her best friend.

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Student 1: Ms. Hagan, did you know that I am addicted to shoes? I have over 400 pairs.

Me: No.

Student 2: Guys, I bet Ms. Hagan is the same way with plants as [Student 1] is with shoes.

Me: Guys, I seriously don't have that many plants.

Student 2: I bet you have so many plants your house looks like a rainforest inside.

Student 1: Ooooh, you could paint all of your cats to look like tigers. Then, it would look like you had tigers wandering around in your rainforest.

Me: Y'all are never going to believe me when I say that I don't own any cats are you?

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If you could have an affair with any married celebrity,who would it be?

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Me: Class, I have sad news.

Student: Did your cat die?

So, I said this first hour. This was not the response I was hoping for. So, I tried it again to see if my next class would give me the same response. Second hour, a student asked the same question. Third hour, the same question. Fourth hour, I forgot to ask. Fifth hour, another student asked me if my cat had died. Sixth hour, the same thing happened all over again.

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Ms. Hagan is a totally different person now that she has a boyfriend. I can't even look at her the same way now. It's like we know we're not first in her life anymore...

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I'd rather cheat off you than cheat on you.

I just had a realization. All old people are is fermented babies.

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Let me see what you're doing in Algebra 2 so I can decide if I want to drop out or not.

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If your boyfriend breaks up with you, there are plenty of other coordinates on the plane.

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You being sarcastic is you saying you're good at math.

And, yes, this was directed at me. #OUCH

You made this?!? I didn't think you ever did anything except eat lettuce.

Dude, I've been baeless forever. You've been baeless for 3 days.

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I have handwriting like a dinosaur, man!

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You should get a pet bunny. Then, you guys could share your food.

So, I've decided that my motivation of late for blogging is pure procrastination. At the moment, I'm procrastinating on cleaning my house by typing up this post. The washer and dryer are both running at the moment, so this still counts as being totally productive, right? ;)

Also - where has this semester gone?!? Just a few more days until Christmas Break! I don't know how I'm going to cope with not hearing crazy things come out of the mouths of teenagers for a couple of weeks...

When you were little, did you lick the television when Veggie Tales came on?

#vegetarianteacherprobs

Student: I sound more like a parakeet than a goat.

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Student: Do you know how many letters are in the word perfect? 7. Do you know what else has 7 letters?

Me: Ms. Hagan.

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Student: Ms. Hagan, are you Internet famous? Did you know most internet famous people sit at home eating chips and petting their cats? I bet you sit at home eating chips and petting your plants.

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Student comment while I was typing:

You sound like a newspaper maker.

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Really? Math on Halloween?!? That is NOT fair.

Student 1: Do you just go home and sit in your room and do math?

Me: Yes. (Sarcastically)

Student 1: Really?

Me: No. Guys, I really do have a life.
Student 1: Yeah. You have cats.
Student 2: Actually, she has plants. Get it right!

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Melted cheese fills the crack in a broken heart.

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If your boyfriend breaks up with you, are you going to start giving us lots of homework?

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Student: Ms. Hagan, did you know that there are different Americas?
Me: What do you mean there are different Americas?
Student: Guys, Ms. Hagan didn't know that there are three different Americas either.
Me: And, what are the three different Americas?
Student: Well, there's North America, South America, and America America. Did you really not know that?!?
Me: I knew that. Did you just learn that?
Student: Yes. But, what I don't get is why isn't Africa also named America?

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If I make a B on this quiz, I'm going to kiss you.

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Student: Look at my arm!
Me: Oh no. What did you do?
Student: Well, I was chasing a donkey down the road on my motorcycle...

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Student: Ms. Hagan, is it against your religion to wear jeans every day?
Me: No. You do know that teachers are only allowed to wear jeans on Fridays, right?
Student: But, you could still wear pants or slacks. Instead, you wear dresses and skirts every day.
Me: I was wearing slacks yesterday.
Student: The way you dress is old and boring looking.
Me: Okay then...

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Student 1: How do you spell pedophile?
Student 2: Just google it. I google how to spell pedophile all the time.

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This isn't a cheat sheet. A cheat sheet would give me the answers. This is a think sheet.

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Student: Ms. Hagan, I took a picture of your house this weekend.
Me: That's kinda creepy.
Student: Do you want to see?
Me: Sure.
Student: [Shows Picture on Phone]
Me: That's not my house.
Student: Oh, I knew that. But, the house had five cats in the front yard so it made me think of you.

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Instead of chocolate, your boyfriend could buy you a bouquet of celery.

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It's not called stalking. It's called following your dreams.

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Do you know what's dumber than a box of rocks? A box of sticks.

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Student: Ms. Hagan, I think I need to get a life.
Me: Why?
Student: Because I've started going home and doing math.

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He's not late; he's fashionably not present.

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I'd rather eat a human than a cat or dog if I was starving.

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Student 1: You can't boil stuff in the bath tub.
Student 2: Yes you can. Just our gasoline in and set it on fire.

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One student to another: He called you "sweetheart." That means he is too old for you. You just got friend-zoned.

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Student 1: Who's Noah?
Student 2: Noah and the Ark.
Student 1: I've never seen that movie.
Student 2: It's in the Bible.

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I love kangaroos. They have that pouch. I just want to climb inside that pouch.

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My gum told me to not listen to you for the next ten minutes.

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One student to another: If you get that close to my face again, I'm going to assume you want me to kiss you. So, I'm going to lick your face.

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When you trip and fall and the spaghetti falls out of your pocket...

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Do you know what I found out? There's a day called Daughter's Day. My parents have been hiding this fact from me. My mom gets Mother's Day, and my dad gets Father's Day. They each get their own special day. I should get my own special day. I mean, I'm so special. I'm like the 2nd Baby Jesus. I'm the Virgin Mary of 2014.

What would you have to do to be in a math play?
You'd have to "addition."

I'd say that it's hard to believe that it's already 2015, but I accidentally named my first Smart Notebook file of the semester 01062016. I guess I'm already wishing that it was 2016...

Since I started blogging, I've recapped the previous year each January in a blog post. You can check out 2013 and 2012 if you're interested. If you remember past years' reviews (or if you just followed the links to read them), I usually write out at least a paragraph for each month. This year, I'm taking a slightly different approach - one non-comprehensive list. After all, lists make me happy. And, this year has been so busy and eventful that I can't quite keep straight what happened when.

So, in no particular order, here's my 2014 in list form:

* Through the MTBoS, I met and started dating an amazing, inspiring guy. He's a maths teacher blogger from Australia, and we have a ridiculous number of things in common with each other. His summer holiday and my Christmas break overlap, so 2014 was able to end with the beginning of his first visit to the United States. :)

* Applied to and started grad school. I'm currently 1/6 done with my master's program in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis in math studies.

* NPR interviewed me/shadowed me for a day the week after Thanksgiving. The story hasn't aired yet, but I'll be sure to let everyone know when it does.

* Finished my second year of teaching and started my third year.

* Set out to read as many books as possible. I ended up reading 71 books. All but 5 of those books were read during the first 6 months of the year. The decrease in books read can be attributed to the first and second items on this list.

* Attended my first edcamp.

* Taught trigonometry for the first time. SO much fun.

* Decided to switch to standards based grading in all of my classes. I should probably write a blog post about that..

* Became extremely addicted to 2048.

* Directed my church's Vacation Bible School program for the 3rd summer in a row.

* Presented at Global Math Department for the first time. I spoke about teaching math with motion.

* Became involved with my local friends of the library organization.

* Presented for the first time at the Oklahoma Council of Teachers of Mathematics Summer Conference.

* Applied for my passport.

* Visited Colorado and New Mexico for the first time.

* Taught class dressed as Pi Girl for Super Hero Spirit Day.

* Had my first Twitter Math Camp Experience. I even worked up the courage to present!!! I met so many amazing, inspiring tweeps in person for the first time.

* Bought a guitar. I still don't know how to play it. But, I figure that I can't learn if I don't own one.

* Attended my first theatre performance - Wicked.

* Fell in love with a certain pencil sharpener.

* Wrote 214 blog posts and surpassed 2 million pageviews on my blog.

* Celebrated my 25th birthday. I'm more than a little excited about being a perfect square.

I'm sure there are a ton of things that I haven't even thought to list. It ended up being a pretty awesome year. I've got this feeling, though, that 2015 is going to turn out to be even more amazing. I can't wait to see what the rest of this new year has got in store.

I can't believe I've already made it to Volume 25! Here are the latest crazy things overheard in my classroom.

Previous Volumes:
Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3 | Volume 4 | Volume 5
Volume 6 | Volume 7 | Volume 8 | Volume 9 | Volume 10
Volume 11 | Volume 12 | Volume 13 | Volume 14 | Volume 15
Volume 16 | Volume 17 | Volume 18 | Volume 19 | Volume 20
Volume 21 | Volume 22 | Volume 23 | Volume 24

Ms. Hagan, thanks for corrupting my mom. She started reading your blog, and now she's going around and trying to use all the crazy phrases teenagers say.

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My sister said I need to be cuter so I can keep a boy for more than a week.

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Student: You're a dime plus ninety-nine.
Me: I'm a what?
Student: You know, a dime. That's 10 plus 99.
Me: Okay...
Student: That means you're a 101.
Me: You might want to check your math there.

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Another Teacher: So, I heard a new rumor about you from a student this morning.
Me: Oh great. What is it this time?
Teacher: The student said that you have an obsession with eating mustard. You eat it on everything, including salad.
Me: Okay. That is the most random, untrue rumor I've ever heard.

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Ms. Hagan, does your boyfriend have a pet giraffe?

#Australianboyfriendprobs

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Male Student: In the blank for period at the top of the paper, I wrote "two weeks late."

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Student: Are you wearing tights?
Me: Yes.
Student: But, those have feet in them. Tights don't have feet in them.
Me: Tights do too have feet in them.
Student: No, pantyhose have feet in them. Tights do not have feet.
Me: I promise you that you can buy tights that have feet in them.
Student: I'm going to have to look for some of these at the store!

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So, I told my mom you had a boyfriend. And, she's never met you. So, she was really confused about why I was telling her this. Then, she had you confused with another teacher. So, she had no idea why it would be a big deal that you had a boyfriend. But, she said she's happy for you.

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I asked my dad if I could put bread in the blender to see what happened, but he wouldn't let me.

Can I have a different calculator? I want one that's not from Texas.

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Student: Have you ever got pulled over by the cops?
Me: No.
Student: Well, if you ever did get pulled over, would you want to know how to get out of a ticket?
Me: Sure. Tell me how to get out of a ticket.
Student: You start by taking all of your clothes off. Then, you jump out of the car and run as fast as you can.
Me: This sounds more like a plan for getting arrested than getting out of a ticket.
Student: Yeah. But, you'll make sure that you end up on the news this way.

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Me: Can anyone give an example of a mnemonic device?
Student: A calculator.

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Can I please go to the restroom? I have to tinkle twinkle little star.

Student 1: He wasn't a very good teacher, but he sure was something to look at!

Student 2: Yeah, I asked for a LOT of help in his class!

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Is it okay to date your ex-boyfriend's brother?

I don't get why we should have to learn all this stuff. I mean we're never going to have to use it in real life anyway. For example, why should I have to learn history?!? Just so I can help my kids with their homework by telling them that Abraham Lincoln was the second president?

Student: You had AIDS last year?!?
Me: No. I said I didn't have any classroom aides last year.

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Do you need that one trash sack commercial? [Don't get sad; get Glad.]

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Me: Name a famous inventor.
Student: Harrison Ford.
Me: Harrison Ford was not an inventor.
Student: Yeah he was. He invented the assembly line.

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Can I call you Ms. H? Cause you're a gangster.

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Your pencil sharpener works too well.

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Me: What are you doing behind my desk? That is my domain.

Student: If that's your domain, than this [pointing at the rest of the classroom] is your range!

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Student 1: Hey guys, do you want to feel something soft? Come feel Student 2's hair.

Student 2: Gotta keep the mullet fresh.

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Does that say demon.com? What is with you and all these satanic practices? First, you asked us to ask ourselves "What would Satan do seriously?" Now you want us to go to a Satan worshiping website.

(I may have a slight obsession with desmos.com. And, for the record, I asked my students to ask themselves, "What would Slope Dude say?")

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Student: Do you have a napkin in here? Because I'm not going to the bathroom!

Me: Why won't you go to the bathroom?

Student: This school is haunted.

Me: How are you going to handle going to school here all day for the next four years?

Student: I'll always make sure I go to the bathroom with a large group. Then, the ghost can't get me.

Look Ms. Hagan! My thumb is a 90 degree angle!

We didn't play Witzzle yesterday. That hurts my feelings!

I'm going to tell my future children that they have to take your class. No excuses!

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Your desk was so clean yesterday. What happened?

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Ms. Hagan, are you drinking germ-x?

Facebook is for old people.

If you spend much time in my classroom at all, you will quickly realize that I use lots of weird analogies. Some analogies I use once and forget about. Other times I start analogies without really thinking about them and end up regretting my decision. And, sometimes, my analogies actually work and I end up being able to use them more than once.

I don't remember the first time I used this analogy, but I think it must have been during my first year of teaching. My students were struggling with factoring the GCF out of an expression. We were looking at problems like this:

It didn't take much convincing that we should factor an 8 out of both terms. But, my students were insistent that we could only factor out one x and one y. Once I convinced them that it was okay to factor out more than a single variable, many of them defaulted to wanting to factor out the number of variables from the first term. So, in this example, they would want to factor out x to the eighth and y to the sixth. Telling them that we wanted to factor out the greatest number of things they had in common didn't really seem to help.

So, analogy time it was. Be forewarned. I used this analogy with my students today, and it resulted in one class accusing me of being cruel and cold-hearted. As long as something helps my students see math more clearly, I'm okay with them thinking crazy things about me.

So, today, the class is confused. Frustrated. Ready to give up. Fixed mindset statements are being uttered at every turn. And, I'm pretty sure most of my students would describe themselves as being in the panic zone. I sit on top of an empty student desk, and I look around at my students. Eventually they seem to sense that I have something to say:

Okay, everyone. Listen up. From walking around and listening to your conversations, I can tell that we're struggling. I'm going to tell you a story. Maybe it will help. Maybe it won't. Maybe you'll go home tonight and tell your parents what a crazy math teacher you have. But, maybe, just maybe, it will help to shed some light on the problems we've been attempting to work.

Some day you will have children. [This statement usually gets their attention!] And, every year you and your children will participate in this crazy tradition. October will roll around, and you will dress up your little ones in adorable or spooky costumes. Then, you'll go from door to door with cute, colorful pumpkin pails. The simple act of uttering three little words will result in candy being placed in your kids' pails. After visiting a number of houses, pumpkin pails will be overflowing, and you and your children will return home, excited to sort through the candy that has been amassed.

At this point, you explain to your children that there are certain things in life that...well...may not seem fair. But, life goes on, and things like taxes must be paid. To help your children learn about the tax system, a Halloween Candy Tax (HCT) will be applied to the night's acquisitions. But, your children needn't worry too much because you will be very fair in collecting the tax.

The HCT requires that the candy must first be sorted by type. Tootsie Rolls are placed with Tootsie Rolls. Butterfingers with Butterfingers. Twizzlers with Twizzlers. I think you get the idea. The main idea behind the tax is that the same number of each kind of candy will be taken from each of your children. If one child has 5 lollipops and and your other child has 7 lollipops, the most lollipops you can take will be 5 lollipops because that is the most that you can take from BOTH of your children. And, because you are greedy and jealous that you are now definitely too old to go trick or treating yourself, you will always take the greatest possible number of candies from all of your children. Sure, you could just take two lollipops from each child, but your greed will cause you to take 5 lollipops from both children.

[At this point in the story, my students are outraged. The one poor child now has zero lollipops. Insert lots of comments about the injustice of the situation and what a terrible person I am. My hope is that if they're engaged in the story, they'll be engaged in how it relates to the problem we're trying to solve.]

Imagine you have two kids. Billy and Sally.

Billy and Sally dump out their pumpkin pails to find tootsie rolls, lollipops, jawbreakers, and a caramel apple. How many tootsie rolls will you tax your children if you want to be fair but greedy? What about lollipops? Jawbreakers? What about that lone caramel apple? Who gets it?

Eventually, you end up with this:

The class decides that Billy really didn't end up well in this deal. Of course, they word it a bit more crudely than that.

Back to the problem:

We decide to let the x's represent starbursts and the y's represent smarties. If one child has 8 starburts and the other child has 9 starbursts, a greedy but fair parent will take 8 starbursts from each child. And, the maximum number of smarties that can be taken from both children would be 5. All of a sudden, lightbulbs start to come on. Why didn't you explain it this way in the first place?

Does every student need this analogy? I don't think so. Students who already understand the concept of finding the GCF will likely find the story annoying and pointless. Why would you need to think about Halloween candy? But, I've found that this analogy makes factoring a bit more tangible for my students who have traditionally struggled with math.

And, for the record, I don't tax my own children's Halloween candy. I'd kinda need children to be able to do that. And, according to my students, this would be a totally unfair policy. So, I guess when I do have kids of my own one day, I'll just have to buy my own Halloween candy...

Hi all! Hope you're enjoying the snow or the crazy warm January temps or whatever other weather phenomenon Mother Nature has decided to send your way. I finally feel like I'm getting settled into the new semester, and I'm hoping that there will be lots more blogging going on here soon!

Until then, I hope you enjoy the latest bunch of crazy things teenagers say.

My goal is not to know how to do algebra. My goal is to be able to go shopping and not look at the price tags.

I know what I want my funeral to be like. I'm going to be wrapped up in a sheet and roll down a hill on fire.

Ms. Hagan is the most confusing woman you could ever meet.

Student: I shot three ducks this weekend.

Me: I thought you raised ducks. Why would you shoot them?

Student: I give my ducks names, so I couldn't shoot them. But, I don't know if the Canadians give their ducks names. So, I don't feel bad about killing them.

Did you know that you can grow a foot taller if you drink a cup of lizard pee every day for a month?

My brother's name is Heath. But, he hates Heath Bars. I just find that ironic.

If there is ever a school shooter, I want to be in coach's room. I feel like he would body slam him. I saw him do push-ups once, and I was like maaaaan!

Why are we acting like a funeral in here?

I don't like math, so I decided not to write you a letter.

Ms. Kipp is our nutritional teacher. And, I saw her walking around with a can of coke yesterday. Can you believe that?!?

Asia IS Korea.

Why would you want your scentsy to smell like your boyfriend?

[For the record, this was not said to me. My scentsy smells like pomegranates.]

You're going to be ugly for the rest of your life. You might as well do it now.

Have you ever had a yawn gone wrong?

A Canadian goose named Jim lives in my yard.

I feel like one of those people with plastic surgery gone wrong because I can only open one side of my mouth.

When people are dead, they float until they sink.

Me: I don't know anything about Hogwarts.

Student: I thought you were a nerd.

Your hair makes you look like a paintbrush.

Student 1: Are you having a bad hair day?

Student 2: No. I just don't bother to fix my hair anymore.

Student 1: How are you going to pick up females like that?

Student 3: With his pickup truck.

One of my absolute favorite concepts in the world to teach is slope. I don't know what it is about slope, but I have an absolute blast convincing students that slope doesn't have to be scary. Plus, it involves introducing them to Slope Dude. And, in my book, any lesson that makes the slightest mention of Slope Dude is a winner.

Hello, I am the person who has WWSDS signs hanging in her classroom. Because you should obviously always ask yourself What Would Slope Dude Say?

Want to download these posters for your own classroom? Click here!

I guess I should warn you about side effects of hanging these posters in your classroom, though. I hung them up part way through our slope unit in Algebra 1 without comment. I just waited for students to notice them. They did. They also started hypothesizing the meaning behind the letters. In fact, all of my classes noticed them. And, it was just too tempting for them to not try to guess what they must stand for. The letters were just beckoning to them to figure their meaning out. It makes me wish I could figure out more ways to harness my students' curiosity like this.

My first period class decided they must mean "What Would Satan Do Seriously?" This led to numerous (very untrue!) rumors about my being a worshiper of Satan. Yeah...

Moving on...

During my first year of teaching, I assigned my students to draw a picture and label the different types of slope in the picture. Then, last year, I changed things up and had them label the different types of slope that could be found in their name. I liked this activity, but I missed the creativity that the previous activity had allowed.

This year, I decided to do the slope name art as our notebook entry and use the picture drawing assignment as the quiz. Definitely the best of both worlds.

We did this lesson months ago, but I'm just now getting around to uploading pictures and sharing them. As you scroll through my students' creations, you will realize that some of them put much more effort into the assignment than others.

Happy Monday! Hope you have a week full of crazy teenagers saying crazy things. If you're not that lucky, here's a taste of the conversations that have gone on in my classroom lately :)

I had a party with my fridge this weekend. My fridge is my boyfriend. He feeds me all the time.

Me: I'm not sure if sitting on this wobbly desk was the best decision.

Student: Don't worry. Vegetarians can't break wood.

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Student: Ms. Hagan, what would you do if you woke up tomorrow with no eyebrows?
Me: I'd cry.

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Isn't Oprah like an opera singer?

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What do Americans eat when they're hungry? A hamburger. Except Ms. Hagan. She eats a carrot.

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Are you sure you are really a human? You like math too much.

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Ms. Hagan, would you like to buy some ribs? Oh wait. You're a vegetarian. Oh wait. You could feed them to your cats.

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Me: Keep your phone away unless you want me to keep it for the rest of the day. Hey, that rhymes!

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Can I ask a question? I'm curious about something. I know curiosity killed the cat. But, I'm not a cat. And, I'm not ready to die. If I was going to die, I want it to be in a cool way so I can be remembered.

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If somebody punched Betty White, she'd probably turn to dust.

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Penelope is a princess name.

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I bet your boyfriend would give us the answers to our test if he were here...

Me: Please take off the welding mask during class.

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You are like my grandma. You have to make yourself laugh to smile in a picture.

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I bet you met your boyfriend on catladiesonly.com

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Ms. Hagan, your eyebrow game is weak.

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Student: Is your sweater soft?

Me: Yeah.

Student: It reminds me of a washcloth.

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I'm like a fish who fell out of the water 10 days ago.

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They let angels teach Algebra 2?

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Can we watch exorcism videos on youtube if we get done with our assignment early?

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My hair isn't nappy. It's hot.

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Ms. Hagan, I had to get up at 10:30 to help catch some cats. It made me think of you.

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Australia has a queen?!?

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Student 1: You don't look like the person who would own a duck.
Student 2: Yeah, you look like a rabbit person.

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Me: Put away all your phones and ouija boards.

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You have cat earrings on. I'm silently judging you, cat lady.

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Student 1: Your hair looks great.
Student 2: I feel like I got tasered, so I don't really care.

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[Student] is a bad word.

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Can I give up? Never mind. I'll use some of the strategies I've learned.

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I'm keeping my notebook forever. I'm going to put it in my hope chest.

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Student: You should download the aa app. It's so addictive.

Me: I don't need any more addictions in my life.
Student: What else are you addicted to?
Another Student: Cats.

--

Student 1: You need to have a baby. It will help mellow you out.
Student 2: I feel like if Ms. Hagan was pregnant, she would be super crazy and kill us all.

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I worked really hard to get these wrong answers, okay?

--

I don't know where to buy one. I've looked at Vera Bradley. I've looked at all the rich people stores.

What if someone got married on Pi Day and their cake had 3.14 tiers. Wouldn't that be cool?

Well, my student council kids have been busy these past few weeks getting stuff prepped for spirit week. Since I'm forgetful and often have to look things up on my own blog to remember how I've done things in the past, I thought I might as well share our spirit week on my blog.

This theme is totally unoriginal. I'm pretty sure one of my StuCo kids found this on pinterest. We modified a few things to make it fit our school.

My students did an awesome job of making posters to hang in the hall to announce each spirit day's dress up theme. The posters have been a new tradition we've started this year. The kids come in one afternoon after school for 3 or so hours. I think it really makes them more invested in the spirit week activities.

Our theme for the week was "There's no place like HOMEcoming." Each day focused on an aspect of the Wizard of Oz.

Monday - Oz the Great and Powerful: Wear your best and brightest green and bling

Tuesday - Twister Tuesday: Dress Wacky (Mismatch Day)

Wednesday - Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Class Color Day)

I was a bit bothered by the fact that not all of these colors are in the rainbow...

Thursday - Lions, Tigers, and Bears. Oh my! (Animal Print Day)

Friday - There's a Storm Coming! (Spirit Day)

This especially fits my school because our mascot is the tornado!

Happy Friday! We had our first two snow days of the year this week which made it a short but super crazy week. There's just something about having a four-day weekend that makes kids a bit antsy in the classroom. Though, I guess it did allow me to miss the post-Valentine sugar rush. ;) Here's the latest installment of crazy things teenagers say.

Ms. Hagan doesn't eat chicken strips. She's not going to bite you.

[Said by a student to their younger sibling to convince them it was safe to enter my classroom.]

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You bring the ranch. I'll bring the fried crickets.

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Ms. Hagan couldn't go to China. She'd have to eat cats.

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Do ovaries make you run faster?

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I'm going to "common sense" you.

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Me: You are going to pretend to be a function for us. Your function is to square whatever input you are given. Do you understand?

Student 1: Yes.

Me: So, if I say 10, what do you say?

Student 1: 100

Student 2: And, if I say 49, what do you say?

Student 1: Get a calculator.

I have to get all A's this semester so I can get a goat.

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Math doesn't make me nervous. It makes me want to stab my eyes out.

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Me: Take of your hat. You know the rule.

Student: But, I have to wear my hat. My hair is........green.

Student 1: Are you going to leave us?

Me: I'm not planning on leaving anytime soon.

Student 2: But, if Ms. Hagan left, we might get a more interesting math teacher.

Student 3: I don't think it's possible to have a more interesting teacher.

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Student: Do you like sour skittles?
Me: No. I don't like skittles.
Student: Ms. Hagan doesn't like Skittles. Guys, I think we should jump her.

People who play bowling are old.

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I bruise easily. I'm like a banana.

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Don't serenade me every Friday. I don't like being serenaded.

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Does anyone else have a balloon I can suck the helium out of?

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Happy Valentines Day, you freaking relationship person.

Thanks...
--

I'm going to grow up to be an underground bear fighter.

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Student 1: Ms. Hagan, have you ever shot a gun.
Me: No.
Student 2: If she doesn't eat meat, why does she need to shoot a gun?

If you haven't noticed lately, my blogging has been a bit sparse. Blogging has taken a bit of a backseat to life lately. But, I think that's how it's supposed to be. Today was a kind-of snow day. We had school, but the majority of students left early. This led to my principal letting me leave early so I could make it home safely. I decided I should use a little of my extra time to try and write up a few blog posts.

During my first year of teaching, I started a tradition of giving math-y valentines to my students. That first year, I had students glue two mobius strips together in such a way that when cut, they made interlinking hearts. Last year, they got pixie sticks and a cute card about parallel lines having the saddest love story.

This year, I knew I wanted to do something involving candy. A few days before Valentine's Day, I ventured to Wal-Mart and proceeded to walk up and down and up and down the candy aisle while looking for inspiration. I was looking for any sort of candy that I could base a valentine off of. I'm pretty sure some of the customers were giving me weird looks. Oh well...

Since V-Day was on a Saturday, my celebration with my students would be falling on the Friday before. Friday in my classroom is Friday Funnies. So, I decided Laffy Taffy would be good because I wouldn't have to come up with jokes to tell my students since there are two jokes on each wrapper. I thought I would make a card that said, "Valentine, I'm so glad that your love of math is no joke."

Laffy Taffy Math Valentine

After buying the candy and heading home, I called my sister to ask what she thought of my valentine idea. She decided that I should make it a pun instead. So, on her advice, I changed the card to read "Love of math is no "laffing" matter." I knew my students would groan when they saw this, but that's really the point anyway, right?

One of my student aides got the job of cutting the cards on the paper chopper and taping the candy to the back of them.

It was so fun to watch the students' expressions as they read the card. I ended up getting a lot of comments of "Oh, Ms. Hagan..." along with a shake of the head.

If anyone wants the file to make these yourself in the future, here's the link.

I used to get really annoyed whenever I would find my own blog posts in my google search results. But, lately, it doesn't annoy me anymore. In fact, I often find myself rereading old blog posts to remind myself of how I did things in the past.

So, yes, I realize it's February. And, yes, I realize that I'm blogging about Veterans Day which was way back when in November. One of Student Council's jobs is to help decorate/plan the Veterans Day Assembly. Unless you have a need to ever make patriotic decorations of your own, this blog post probably won't be of interest to you. But, next November, when I'm trying to remember how we did a certain thing, I'll be back here looking at it.

One of my super artsy students painted this beautiful banner to hang on the wall for our assembly.

Columns that we normally use for prom decorations were wrapped in red, white, and blue table cloths.

I had nothing to do with this paper link flag, but I thought it was a really cute idea!

My main job was overseeing the creation of a balloon flag. One of my coworkers had her son construct a pvc frame to build the flag on.

I recruited my first hour freshmen Algebra 1 class to help me blow up the balloons. To say this was chaotic would be a huge understatement. I certainly didn't have the time, motivation, or lung power to blow up all of the balloons by myself though. That would be CRAZY.

I'm pretty sure the kids helping me might have popped just as many balloons as made it on the final display.

If you look closely at the bottom row, you can see that we actually ended up being short one red balloon. Oops...

And, I guess this post isn't complete without a picture of me in my Veteran's Day outfit. It's not everyday you can pull off looking like the American flag...

This has been a weird year of teaching for me. It's year three which means that I feel like I'm kinda starting to get the hang of this whole teaching thing. But, at the same time, I see so many areas that I desperately need to improve in. I go back and forth between feelings of excitement over being able to parts of lessons and notebook pages from previous years and feelings of disappointment in myself for just reusing things from previous years and not making them better. My notebook pages this year look a lot like last year's with a few tweaks and new additions.

I haven't really done a great job of blogging notebook pages this year because it's seemed like I'd just be sharing the same stuff all over again. But, I do need to make an effort to share these new pages with y'all.

Here are two new pages I created this year for Algebra 1's unit on slope.

Last year, I let my students design their own notebook pages over finding slope from a graph. While this let me see what they knew and understood, it did not lead to pretty notebook pages that they could later reference. I knew this needed to be remedied this year!

I have posters in my classroom that say WWSDS? This stands for "What would Slope Dude say?" After students use rise/run to find the slope and write their answer, I ask them to consider WWSDS? Then, they compare their answer to what Slope Dude would say. If their answer was positive two thirds and Slope Dude would say "Nice Negative!" this is a sign of a problem. I've blogged more about Slope Dude and these posters here.

One of the standards for Algebra 1 in Oklahoma is that students are able to interpret the meaning of the slope and intercepts of a graph. I feel like I've always sort of rushed over this before. This year, I decided to spend an entire 50 minute class period just interpreting the slope of graphs and tables.

We took a few notes about interpreting slope. Then, we got lots of practice in the form of a poof book!

Here's my notes over interpreting slope:

I gave students a sentence format to use to interpret slope. For each example in the poof booklet, we used this sentence framework. My students in the past have regularly fallen for the incorrect multiple choice option that leaves out the word change in the interpretation. I was hoping that by having my students write this sentence a crazy amount of times that the word change would become ingrained in their memories!

Outside of Poof Book:

The inside pages of the poof booklet are tables and graphs that I stole directly from EOI sample problems provided by the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

So, I guess I should have put these two pages at the beginning of the post. Oh well. I think you can figure out what order these pages actually went in our notebook based on the content. :)

The Slope graphic organizer was a reused page from last year.

However, the finding slope from a table or points notes are new.

I always start teaching slope with the "scary textbook definition." Students are freaking out. They think they're never going to understand this new topic. Then, we slowly break apart the fancy definition into something that is much less scary and more familiar. Eventually, they realize that slope really isn't that bad at all.

There are a lot of days where we just take plain old notes in my classroom. Not everyday is filled with foldable fun. Maybe someday...

I did find a way to incorporate a foldable into this lesson, though. My students used our new handy dandy foldable vertical number lines to find the differences in the x values and the y values.

We only do slope as delta y/delta x or change in y over change in x. The slope formula (y2-y1)/(x2-x1) has been banned in my classroom for two years now. And, it's one of the best decisions I ever made. When my students have to think about what's happening on the number line, they are much more accurate and careful than when they try to remember integer rules that they never really learned in the first place.

I'm also a total convert to vertical number lines now. They're awesome. Of course I still just have a horizontal number line in my classroom. Next year, though, I will have a vertical number line on the wall, too. It's a must-have now.

I love that students can fold out the number line when they need it. Fold it back when they don't. I wrote more about the vertical number line here.

Want to download these pages? Click here.

This year I did something wrong. Something seriously wrong.

What did I do wrong? I'm not entirely sure. But, my students are convinced that point-slope form is easier than slope intercept form. This. Has. Never. Happened. Before. My students normally dread point-slope form. They cry. They whine. They threaten to drop out of school because algebra is too hard. The week or so that we spend actively engaged in working with point-slope form is not a happy week. At least it wasn't until this year.

So, what was different? I can think of two things.

Giant Foam Dice and Desmos.

Instead of giving my students problems, I let them create their own problems. Or, I guess I should say the dice created their problems for them. First, students worked together in pairs of two. Each pair got a giant foam die. My math teacher coworker across the hall gave me these right before school started. They are SO handy!

Decide before you start how to determine which numbers will be positive and which will be negative. We decided to make odd numbers negative and even numbers positive. This worked okay. It led to a lot more horizontal and vertical lines than if you flipped a coin to determine positive/negative. But, I think I'm okay with that. Usually, I neglect to give my students enough practice with problems where the points form a line with zero or undefined (or Undefiiiiiiiiiinnnnneeeeddd! as Slope Dude would say) slope.

Roll the die twice to form the first ordered pair. Roll the die two more times to form the second ordered pair. At this point, students knew from their notes on point-slope form that they had to determine the slope of the line that went through these two points. However, my students knew they had two options. They could graph the two points and find the slope that way. Or, they could use a table and their vertical number lines to find the slope. (More about that here!) Students could pick whichever way they felt more comfortable.

It was so good to see kids using their notebooks. It's a reminder that the notes we take in class really do make a difference.

Having found the slope, students plugged the slope and one of their points into the formula for point-slope form. Then, we converted the equation to slope intercept form for even more practice with slope-intercept form.

This is where things take a radical turn from how I've done them in the past. Usually, I would be like "Yay, we found the equation of the line. Go us! Let's do another one." The problem with this is that my students aren't convinced that this equation actually goes through these points. Assuming we've made no errors, I'm convinced. But, then again, I'm an algebra teacher. The thought of teaching equations is what makes me want to get out of bed in the morning. My students? Not so much.

My students need to be convinced, though. I could have them graph the two points and graph the line they found in slope intercept form. But, knowing my students, they would probably just draw a line through the two points and "pretend" it matched the equation. No, they need better proof. Definitive proof. And, that's what desmos provided us.

If my school had laptops, or ipads, or wifi access for students, I would let them each check their own work as they went. But, sadly, that's not the type of school I work in. We don't even have a computer lab that we can take students to. I see the activities that other teachers are able to do with their students and desmos, and I get super jealous. Extremely jealous. Life goes on, though. And, I remind myself that I am providing the best education for my students that I know how to with the resources I have been provided with.

Anyway. Let's get back to how I was able to use desmos in my classroom. I pulled up desmos on my desktop computer. As pairs of students found the equations that went through their pairs of points, I had them bring their dry erase boards up to my desk. I inserted the two points they had rolled with the dice into desmos. Then, with great fanfare, I typed in the equation they had come up with.

One of two things happened. Cheers because the line very clearly went through both points. Or groans. The students who cheered were sent back to their desks to repeat the process with newly rolled points. The students who groaned were sent back to their desks to look for their mistake.

The feedback was instant and glorious. Thank you Desmos!

And, there's just something different about the computer screen telling you you're right and your math teacher telling you you're right.

As the year has progressed, students still ask sometimes if we can "desmos" something when they want to check their work. And, of course, I always say yes. :)

Later on in the chapter, we were studying parallel and perpendicular lines. We pulled out the dice again. Roll the dice. Form two points. Find a line that is parallel to the line that goes through these two points. Find a line that is perpendicular to the line that goes through these two points. More desmos. More awesomeness.

Though, I guess we do need to work a bit on our spelling of parallel and perpendicular. ;)

This is my first year teaching trig, so I'm figuring out a lot of things as I go. There is no textbook. No pacing guide. Just my own experiences with taking trig in high school to guide me. This is both exciting. And scary.

My memories of high school trigonometry involve lots of graphing on the calculator. I didn't want to take this approach. My kids already seem to rely to much on the calculator to do their thinking for them. And, I feel like one of the areas I failed these kids in Algebra 2 was transforming functions. When they see a trig function, I want them to really see and think about what is going on with the graph, not just type an equation in their calculator and sketch the result.

So, long story short, my kids didn't really freak out when I asked them to graph trig functions by hand. In fact, they think it's a completely normal thing to do. Yay :) Eventually, I had to spill the beans and admit to them that I doubt their college professors will ever ask them to graph a translated tangent graph by hand. "But why not? It's so easy!"

One thing I've done this year is ask my students to create mini-posters that summarize how to graph various trig functions by hand. Some of my kids did a much better job at this than others, but I think they all learned from this process. Instead of giving them each an equation to graph, I had them make their own equation. (However - they can't use the equations from their notes or their neighbor's equations!) Because my kids are smart/lazy/, they started thinking about what a,b,c,d values would make their functions easy to graph. A lot of them realized that if they changed the b value on their sine or cosine graph to pi, they could mark their x axis in terms of integers instead of in terms of pi. And, the best thing would be when my kids accidentally made mistakes with their graphing. Normally, mistakes wouldn't make me that happy. But, so many of my students would figure out how to change their equation to account for the "mistake" instead of re-graphing the entire function. Then, it wasn't a mistake anymore. :)

I snapped some pictures of the posters made by my students. Some of these have errors. So, please don't take them for gospel!

Notes to myself for next time I teach trig:
* Take better notes over how to identify/label the period/amplitude of a graph
* Have students do everything but the final graph in pencil. Graph the final graph (after translations) in color.
* Give the mini-poster project as an assignment BEFORE the quiz instead of after it. Lots of awesome learning happened in the process. :)

Do you know those ideas you see online that sound really, really good, but you never seem to get around to trying them out in your classroom? Yesterday, I tried one of those out. I Have...Who Has? You know, the deck of cards where each card answers a previous card, and it makes a giant circle around the classroom if nobody messes up.

My Algebra 1 students are currently working on translating algebraic expressions and equations. This is generally something I start the year off with, but I was super keen to start this year off with functions and graphing. As a result, this topic got pushed back to the end of the year.

With snow days, should-have-been snow days, should-have-been school days, and days where half the school is gone to the basketball tournament, it seems like I've been having trouble making much progress with my students these past couple of weeks. Due to the basketball tournament, I was only able to teach my morning classes yesterday. These kids, knowing that they wouldn't be in school that afternoon, were not exactly in a mood to take notes and start a new topic. I wasn't about to waste a perfectly good morning for instruction, though.

Normally, I would try to fit all my notes for this topic into one fifty minute class period. Instead, I decided to do half the notes and a practice activity that would get the kids thinking and working with hopefully minimal complaining. I wish I could tell you that the I Have - Who Has? cards fit this bill perfectly.

For my first hour, they did exactly that. Only a few kids had experience with this practice structure. And, they were really gung ho about the activity from the start. There was some initial confusion because they couldn't figure out why the answers on the cards did not match up. They didn't realize that another student would have the answer to their question. Once they realized this, it seemed to go really smoothly. With this class, I have a number of kids who have not been successful at math before that seem to be almost impossible to engage. These students will take notes, but any time we are doing practice problems, they are more often than not seen drawing funny pictures on their dry erase board or telling a joke to a neighbor. Threatening that they will have to take this class again if they fail doesn't exactly work on students who are already taking Algebra 1 for the 2nd time.

There's something completely different about this activity than my typical practice structure of solving the problems on individual white boards. The success of the activity depends on every single student participating. Any time there would be a pause in the activity, students would start checking their neighbors cards to see if they had the correct answer. Students had to be engaged. Students had to be participating. Students had to be paying attention. I don't think I've ever seen my first hour as engaged in a practice activity as they were for I Have...Who Has?

After finishing the deck, they begged to play again. Students begging to do math. Yeah, I could get used to doing this! Students were asking if we could do this for other topics because it really helped them. They decided this would be the perfect way to review for the EOI.

So, as I began 3rd hour (my next Algebra 1 class), I was floating on cloud nine. I had this amazing, engaging, proven-to-work activity to try with my students. They hated it. Hated it. I'm thinking it has a lot to do with the make up of the class. This class is full of much more self-motivated learners. Most of these students want to do well. They want to succeed. And, to them, this game was silly. It was boring. It was pointless. I know this because there was a running commentary throughout the activity of just how stupid this was. I guess you can't win them all... It still did the job and got some practice done. And, honestly, this group of kids would likely have complained about any activity I had tried to get them to do.

The deck of I Have...Who Has? cards that I printed off the internet was way too simple for my students. It didn't have many variations of words that could mean the different operations. If I were to do this again, I would probably make my own deck that better reflected the words I needed my students to be able to understand. Now that I know the activity is worthwhile, I will definitely be making my own custom decks in the future. I'm kinda glad that the first time I did this activity featured a pretty simple deck, though, because it meant we could focus on exactly how the practice structure worked instead of getting caught up with how to solve more complex problems at the same time.

The deck I used can be downloaded for free from: http://www.mathwire.com/whohas/whalgA.pdf

So, life has been a bit busier than normal for me of late. And, it's totally the fault of the MTBoS. And NPR.

It all started back in November. I received a notification that I had been mentioned in a tweet.

If you haven't heard, the NPR Ed team is doing a year-long focus on what effective education looks like IN the classroom. They're calling the initiative "50 Great Teachers." You should also check out their education blog for inspiring and relevant stories.

Cory Turner, a reporter and editor for the NPR Ed Team, sent out a tweet to say he was looking for a rural teacher to do a story about. Without hesitation, Nancy Swank, a long-time blog reader, recommended that he check out me. I've never met Nancy, but I feel like I know her well. A search for "Nancy in Indiana" in my e-mail account brings up 37 results from blog comments she has left. Nancy is a former math teacher who is currently teaching German. She's even started her own blog about creative teaching techniques which you should definitely check out! (I know absolutely nothing about German, but I know that I would love to study any foreign language in Nancy's class. She is incredibly inspiring to me!)

I was flattered to think that someone who has never actually met me would recommend me to an NPR reporter! It turns out the reporter didn't know Nancy, either. But, for some reason, he felt compelled to follow the link to my twitter profile which led him to my blog. This led him to send me an e-mail. That e-mail led to a phone call to me. And, a phone call to my principal. After that, another phone call to me led to flights being booked and travel plans being made. Finally, Cory Turner and his producer, Elissa Nadworny, showed up at my house one December morning at 7 in the morning to follow me around for an entire day. Isn't that crazy?!?

Later, I did learn, that one of the things that made me stand out over the hundreds of other people who were nominated as a result of this tweet was my twitter username: @mathequalslove. It turns out that not everybody thinks that math and love are equivalent. Who knew? ;) This just goes to show that picking out a clever name for your math teaching blog is super important. I kinda wish I had done one of those posts when I started blogging about why I named my blog "Math = Love." Because, years later, I don't really remember how I came about choosing that name. I do remember spending days trying to think of a perfect, clever name. I guess that hard work paid off... And, I really do believe that math equals love.

When I saw that I had been mentioned on twitter, I thought it was a cool honor, but I *knew* nothing would ever come of it. But, lo and behold, something did come of it. Something really awesome! When I agreed to let NPR into my classroom, I realized that it was a big deal. I don't think I realized just how big of a deal it was, though.

I'll put it this way: lots of people listen to NPR's All Things Considered. Lots of people heard my story. Lots of people saw my story on facebook. Lots of people shared my story on facebook. Lots of people commented on my story on facebook. Lots of people left me comments and sent me e-mails after hearing/reading my story. Honestly, the response has been more than a bit overwhelming.

The posting of my story on NPR's facebook page, alone, received over 900 comments, over 12,000 shares, and over 29,000 likes. Oh. My. Goodness. People I know in real life just happened to hear the story on the radio without knowing anything about it in advance. That was pretty cool. My coworkers started getting calls from friends and family across the country saying that Drumright HS had made the news. I don't think I've actually wrapped my mind around just how many people have been impacted by my story. I didn't go into teaching to make money. I didn't go into teaching to become famous. I became a teacher because I wanted to change the lives of my students. I wanted to show them that math was something that they could do, even if they had never been successful at it before. I wanted to show them that math didn't have to be boring. It didn't have to be scary. Math could be fun. Math class could be enjoyable. Yes, math could even be something they learned to love. I quickly realized, though, that I don't want my impact on the world to stop with my students. I have been inspired by so many teachers in the MTBoS, and I want to inspire other teachers. My blog has allowed me to do that. And, this NPR piece is letting me take that to the next level.

It also had more than a little impact on my blog traffic. I bet you can figure out exactly what day the NPR story aired.

I definitely wonder how I ended up here. There are so many other teachers who are way more deserving of an NPR story than me. Because I can't claim credit for any of this. I learned about speed dating from Kate Nowak. I learned the quadratic formula song from my high school Algebra 2 teacher. My A/B/Not Yet grading scale is just SBG in disguise. I learned about SBG from the MTBoS. I learned about INBs from Megan Hayes-Golding and Jonathan Claydon. I steal ideas from others. I modify them to work for my kids. I blog about the results. I'm not an especially creative person. I'm just dedicated to giving my students the best education I can.

I also have to admit that I was a tad bit scared to read/listen to the NPR story. You see, my kids had told me that they were going to tell the reporters a ton of crazy things. And, they carried through with that threat to a certain extent. They definitely told the reporter about my being a crazy cat lady. Naturally, he had to ask them just how many cats their math teacher owned. The look of confusion on his face when they replied that I owned zero cats was kinda priceless. Then, there was the conversation where the students said I should get a pet rabbit so I could share all of my vegetarian food with it... I also knew that they had interviewed students when I was out of the room, so there's no telling what they said when I wasn't around to defend myself. It all turned out well, though. :)

In the end, I feel like the story really did capture a day in my classroom. It was a mixture of trying new lessons and refining old lessons. We speed dated to practice naming polynomials. We sang the quadratic formula to the tune of Pop! Goes The Weasel. My trig students used circles and spaghetti to begin constructing a sine curve.

It was a ton of fun.

If you haven't heard or read the story, you can check it out here. The audio version is slightly different than the blog version. And, I'd definitely recommend checking out the audio version of the story. If you were wondering, the sound of the creaking floorboards was actually recorded in my classroom. This made my kids laugh. A lot. We listened to the audio version of the story in class, and they had a ton of fun trying to figure out who each voice belonged to in the recordings. They were also eager to see who ended up in the pictures posted with the web version of the story. Of course, all my students had to complain about what bad hair days they were having in the pictures.

The pictures definitely led to some interesting conversations in class. My students claim that the last picture in the story where I'm sitting on my bed could double as an ad for anti-depressants. Oh, the things teenagers say... It was pretty cool to realize that my students approved of my choice of bed spread, though. And, for the record, I bought it at Wal-Mart of all places a few months ago. Though, the fact that there is now a picture of my bed on the internet for the rest of the world to see is a tad bit creepy when you think about it...

I ended up mailing my interactive notebooks off to the NPR people. Elissa Nadworny made this awesome GIF as a result. I could sit and stare at this thing for hours!

GIF by Elissa Nadworny (NPR)
Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/03/09/376596585/the-teacher-who-believes-math-equals-love

The NPR story, of course, is only the beginning of some new adventures. But, those will have to wait for another blog post!

I know I'm super behind on blogging about lots of stuff, but I just had to blog about things teenagers say today. I'll get around to blogging about SXSWedu and Pi Day and all kinds of other fun stuff soon! Promise.

I don't know what it was about today, but my students were saying crazy things left and right. Maybe they're always this funny and I get busy and don't realize it, or maybe there was just something in the air today. Either way, enjoy my students and their craziness!

I tossed my dog in the ceiling fan. But, it's a good thing because he lived.

--

I had 2 boyfriends at once, but I don't count that as cheating.

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Me: This morning, I opened my yogurt, and it splattered all over me. Don't you hate when that happens?
Student: If you ate bacon, that wouldn't happen.

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Ms. Hagan can't be a cougar. Cougars eat meat.

(And, for the record, I'm definitely not a cougar. Just thought I should clear that up...)

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Me: I got something in the mail today!
Student: Was it a grown man’s foot?
Me: That would be a no. What type of mail do you normally get?!?

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How did your boyfriend send you flowers all the way from Australia? Oh wait. I'm dumb. Australia is in America. That makes sense how he could send you flowers now.

Witzzle is what I live for, Ms. Hagan!

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This lesson is radical!
(Of course, this was said during a lesson on reviewing radicals...)

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Me: I’m going to tweet that.
Student: Make sure you @ me.
Me: I have a policy that I don’t @ students on twitter.
Student: But, I need more followers.
Another Student: Do you really want a lot of cat-loving math teachers to start following you?

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Can I open a window? I feel like I’m breathing other people’s air.

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I don’t even remember how to kiss anymore. I’m going to have to look it up on YouTube.

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Is it weird if I don’t like people coming over to my house and using my silverware? I always give them plastic. And, I always take my own silverware if I go over to other people’s houses.

--

I wish there was a throwing up emoji.

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Student 1: When is your next soccer game?
Student 2: Next week.
Student 1: Who do you play?
Student 2: I don’t know.
Student 1: I’ve heard of them!

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Ms. Hagan, I have determined that paying attention in class actually matters!

I would rather get hit in the head with golf ball-sized hail than do this math problem.

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I'll be here all week with the pi jokes. I'm like a baker.

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I'm going to be that creepy admirer of Ms. Hagan and put her name on my back windshield.

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You can't really speed in my car and look cool.

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Why did no one tell me my mustache is looking pedophilish?

Things Teenagers Say Volume 22

Trigonometry Unit 2 Interactive Notebook Pages

Things Teenagers Say: Volume 23

Things Teenagers Say: Volume 24

2014: Year In Review

Things Teenagers Say Volume 25

Weird Analogies: The Halloween Candy Tax

Things Teenagers Say Volume 26

WWSDS: What Would Slope Dude Say?

Things Teenagers Say: Volume 27

Basketball Homecoming - Spirit Week 2015

Things Teenagers Say: Volume 28

Laffy Taffy Math-y Valentines

Veterans Day Decorations

Finding and Interpreting Slope INB Pages

Rolling Dice for Point Slope Form and Desmos Awesomeness

Trig Mini Poster Project

Trying out "I Have...Who Has?" for the First Time

Adventures with NPR

Things Teenagers Say: Volume 29