SOLs Covered: None yet
Math Unit: 00 Back-to-School
Daily Agenda: August 19-23, 2024
Upcoming Assessments: Quiz 1.01 Introduction to Integers (Tues. 9/3)
Congratulations to everyone (both students and their grownups) for surviving your first week of middle school! It's a giant transition for everyone, one I have an even better appreciation for after venturing into the elementary world last year. If the students had to change classes at all in elementary, it was generally only once for math and to a classroom nearby; now they're changing classes every 80-ish minutes and going all over the building, which also happens to be much bigger. In elementary, they can keep all their belongings in the desk or in a cubby in the room; in middle, they need to lug all their stuff with them and keep up with it from place to place. These are just a few of the big changes and that can be a big, scary thing for the kids. For this reason, I don't cover any new math content in class the first week of school and just work to build routines and establish new norms with the kids. The kids are probably still feeling a bit overwhelmed, so we'll continue to ease them into the transition. Kids in general, but especially 6th graders, can often be reluctant to ask questions at the start of the year (sometimes all year), so if they bring concerns to you, please feel free to reach out to us.
While we didn't get into any new math topics, I gave them several "get to know you" activities both to learn more about the students as well as give them a preview of working on Canvas, our learning management system, in case they've not used it before or perhaps didn't do much with it in elementary school. After being in all the classrooms at Enon Elementary last year in my roll as Title I math interventionist, I found that some teachers used it very minimally, so that can be another huge transition for middle schoolers. For this reason, I start the year giving a lot of grace when it comes to turning in their digital assignments on time and will not penalize for lateness in the first few weeks. Once the grace period is up, I do not mark down their grade as I believe grades should only be a reflection of learning, while I see the act of turning in work late as more of a behavioral concern.
That being said, turning work in late does get addressed and if it's a frequent thing, I'll be reaching out to parents/guardians, but the students will need to use some of their reward points to "pay a late fee." The reward points are my attempt to add in more financial literacy to the children's math learning as I feel that's lacking in the curriculum. When I go over the system in greater detail with the students once we get to the first graded assignments, I explain how it's similar to when we as adults have to pay our bills; if we're late in paying our bills, the company will still take the full amount, but a late fee is generally added. These reward points can be used to buy little treats in class (water bottle stickers, candy, "sit where you want" pass, etc.), so I also explain to the kids that they have to learn to budget their points for the things they want or need and thus you don't want to lose money by having to spend it on "late fees" that you could have prevented. On top of hopefully reinforcing the personal responsibility, I also tie in our math topics by giving "discounts" on items (ex. 1/4 off, 50% discount).
Aside from these general "back to school" basics, the students also completed their ALEKS Knowledge Check and our ALEKS Pre-Test. If you've never had a CCPS middle schooler before, ALEKS might be new to you, but it's essentially the middle school equivalent of DreamBox or Imagine Math. The county's expectation is that the kids spend 20 minutes each day on ALEKS. We'll give time in class, but if they can't complete it in class, it's expected that they finish it at home. I use this requirement to also help teach time management skills as that's generally an area that middle schoolers struggle with as they are not used to having an adult doing all of that for them. Again, this is an area where we'll guide them to start, but we'll slowly give more freedom as we move along.
It's nearing 5PM and I'm still sitting in my classroom and I've maybe overwhelmed you with information already (I'd like to say this is atypical, but I tend to get carried away with our work), so I'm going to wrap this up here. If you have any questions or concerns throughout the year, please feel free to email, though I'll warn that I'm trying to build a better work/life balance, so I'm trying not to check email over the weekends and at night, but I'll always respond within 24 working hours.
I hope everyone has an amazing weekend!