Bright Idea

I haven’t been able to blog much lately.  I have been busy watching my husband steal my thoughts for his blog.  (See Link on Blogs I follow)  You should definitely check it out. You can hear his sarcasm all throughout his writing.  Anyway, he is doing a great job and will continue blogging, since its one of his yearly goals.  That means I must be more creative and write about things that either he isn’t a part of OR just do a better job of portraying our life than he does. 

In order to move on, I’ll blog about school.  On the way to school I had a bright idea or better a divine intervention that worked wonderfully!  To keep from boring you with the details, I introduced my students to the coordinate plane today (it looks like a plus sign labeled x and y).  I put my desks around the edge of the room facing the center.  I used painters tape to tape the x and y –axis.  The tiles on the floor served as the grid paper.  Then I had students find their ordered pair on the grid.  It was awesome!  Kids coming to life on the coordinate plan.  We made shapes and performed geometrical transformations (slide, rotate, reflect).  Then students transferred their knowledge and practice on graph paper.  One student (when trying to work the problem on the graph paper) got up, stood and moved in the grid and then went and finished her work.  I love it when math can come to life!  This week has been fun and its only Tuesday!  Yesterday we moved, reflected, rotated, and slide with a partner.  It was priceless! 

As much as I am enjoying my life-size coordinate plane, I am also using my math skills to count down to Spring Break.  Yes, that’s right.  I know there is lots of school between now and then and normally I wouldn’t rush it, but this year we have big plans!  7 weeks from now, we will in a beautiful cabin in Gatlinburg!  I can’t wait!!  So as much as snow is a rarity in our part of the world, we don’t need anymore during the school week.  No more missed days!