Welcome to the 2024-2025 school year! I am pleased to take this opportunity to introduce myself to you and welcome you to Middle School Math at PCA. This will be my ninth year teaching Math at Pinnacle Classical Academy. I am a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh with a major in Secondary Education and History. In 2014, I received my masters of education degree in Middle Grades Mathematics at Brenau University. I have been named a finalist for the 2022 Presidential Award for Excellence in Math teaching. The Presidential Award is the highest honor give to Math and Science teachers in the nation. We are impatiently awaiting the results. I have two children a son, Jackson, who is starting fifth grade this fall and a daughter, Katherine, who will be starting second grade.
Assignments and Agenda
Below you will find an overview of assignments for the week.
Assignments are subject to change based on what we are able to accomplish daily in the classroom.
Classroom Supplies
1" binder
pocket binder dividers (5 sections)
3 sharpened pencils (daily)
expo markers (optional)
filler paper or spiral notebook
headphones (need daily for i-Ready)
Students will have five sections in their binders.
Notes - I will give the students a printed copy of the notes for each unit. At the end of each unit students are instructed to take their old notes out and keep them at home.
WIN (What I Need) - Students will get a stapled packet each unit that has homework and classwork pages that we will work on during independent practice or small group time. Not all of these pages will be collected for a grade.
Spiral - This section is where students will keep their warm up activities that give them daily practice on past taught material.
Brain Dump - This will build throughout the year with key information from each unit for the students to reference as needed.
Data - During the course of the school year students will keep track of their data to help them become invested in the growth. We will take pretests at the start of each unit and compare our knowledge from the beginning and the end of each unit.
Student Arrival/Dismissal
See the yellow arrows for the flow of traffic, with cars entering at the "elementary" sign.
See the yellow arrows for the flow of traffic, with cars entering at the "high school" sign.
Absent for an extended period of time?
I have a couple of ways that students can stay up to date with school work while they are absent. If they are feeling well enough they can join my live google meet. I record my first period class from 8:00am to 9:40 am. I do not record during math small group or tests/quizzes. I ask that students joining mute their mic and turn off their cameras. All questions should be asked via email as my attention will be on the students sitting in front of me. Students can use this link to join the google meet.
If students miss the live class they can watch the video recording. Videos are posted under the current week and date. This is easiest to view if students select the "classwork" tab at the top of google classroom. Each day I post an agenda with what we accomplish for the day, any videos or images we view, and include if there were any handouts that the students need to get upon their return. Please see the image below for an example. It takes awhile for youtube to finish processing the video each day. Recordings are usually available by noon.
Please email me if you have any questions.
