Idea Galaxy

Adventures in Junior High and Mathematics

interactive notebooks

How to Get the Most Out of Your Slope Intercept Form Foldable

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Slope Intercept Form Foldable

Sometimes the most simple foldables are the best ones. That’s how I feel about the slope intercept form foldable. Students struggle to understand slope and y-intercept because there are so many parts to it. This foldable is an excellent reference that simply shows what the different parts of slope intercept form formula stand for. This gives students a basic understanding that each part of the formula can be replace by something. (Click here to get this foldable. All you have to do is print and go.) [Read more…] about How to Get the Most Out of Your Slope Intercept Form Foldable

3 Hacks to Manage Interactive Notebooks in the Math Classroom

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One of the things I like to do during the summer break is spend some time flipping through old interactive notebooks and looking at what worked well this year, and what I want to try for next year. While thinking about how things went this year with interactive notebooks (INBs as we call them in my class), I thought about three organizational strategies, or hacks, that really helped this year run more smoothly. So in this post I want to share those with you. [Read more…] about 3 Hacks to Manage Interactive Notebooks in the Math Classroom

Getting a Head Start with the FREE Math Interactive Notebooks Mini-Course

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Are you just getting started with math Interactive Notebooks in your classroom?

Or, do you want to step up your game with interactive notebooks?

Today I want to share with you a great, step by step guide to help you either get started with or sharpen up how you use interactive notebooks in your math classroom.

This free mini-course comes right to your email inbox. Plus, it’s packed full of classroom tested tips and tricks for using interactive notebooks that will save you so much time throughout the whole school year. [Read more…] about Getting a Head Start with the FREE Math Interactive Notebooks Mini-Course

How to Make Adding Integers Stick Forever

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Students spend their whole lives working with positive numbers. Then one day we’re like, “Hey, guess what guys? Some numbers are negative. Surprise!” We then wonder why they have such a hard time acclimatizing to this newfound knowledge. How can we break this sad cycle? I find that for many students, if you want them to really understand what they’re doing with adding positive and negative integers, you have to do a lot of background building and even some unteaching from what they’re used to. [Read more…] about How to Make Adding Integers Stick Forever

Teaching Mean Absolute Deviation Like a Rock Star

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Mean absolute deviation can sound very intimidating. I remember being in a master’s class and we had to find the standard deviation of some data. Most people in the class had no clue what to do. Most 7th grade math teachers have been teaching math since before the Common Core came on the scene, so this makes mean absolute deviation a new topic for many of us.

If you’re like me, you get worried when there’s a new topic. You want to teach it right, but you’re not confident with how to teach it. At least, not yet. It’s taken me a bit of time to feel comfortable with it, but this year I had so much fun teaching this concept. Let me show you step by step how I broke down and taught my 7th grade students about mean absolute deviation.

[Read more…] about Teaching Mean Absolute Deviation Like a Rock Star