Girl Math

It's always fun when you can bring robots into your math class, and I was able to do this recently! The gist: students were given a large sheet of paper with a coordinate plane. They were tasked with creating a city and having the Ozobot travel around their city completing commands based on student code. The path of the Ozobot was a piecewise function and students created equations based on the functions. All this was completed in pairs or groups of three. I was short on time because the Ozobots were only available for one class period, so students did not have enough time to come with a written storyline, but each group was able to verbally explain the path of their robot. One group actually chose to use "Stranger Things", Hawkins, as their city- and even explained that they knew the function wasn't one-to-one! This project is a fantastic way to get students engaged, it has a little something for everyone. All students were 100% engaged for the duration of the class ...

I know that I was not the creator of this activity, and I have no idea who is... but it was a great way to introduce confidence intervals for proportions. In the past, I have used the thumbtack opener, but SAM's club was calling my name for a ginormous bag of Kisses! This activity encompasses all of the introductory notes for this lesson; therefore I just jumped right in and skipped the note-taking. We collect a large sample of trials, check conditions, use prior knowledge of sampling distributions, discuss population vs. sample and parameter vs. statistic, etc.  The new stuff is also embedded into this activity. Students are introduced to the phrases: margin of error, point estimate, and confidence interval (duh). The gist: students are given 5 Kisses, a cup and the student sheet (see below). They are to shake the cup and drop the Kisses on their desk, count how many land flat on the base and repeat for a total of 10 drops and 50 combined Kisses. We create an interval for each stu...

  I was feeling festive last October, so I created a Halloween theme solving rational equations Google Slides activity. I love Halloween, so creating a spooky assignment was so much fun! In this assignment, students must solve 8 rational equations. Each question corresponds with an answer on the last slide. Students will move the spider next to the answer to the corresponding question number. Once the students are finished, the phrase will spell out HAUNTED! I know that students could probably figure out the phrase; however, I created a student worksheet where students must show all work in order to receive credit. Fast forward to this semester, I wanted to use the same activity, but I obviously can't use Halloween. You know what that means, I just had to create a spring theme activity! In the spring activity, students must move the flowers to spell out RAINBOW.  Halloween Student Edition  Halloween Student Worksheet Halloween Teacher Edition Spring Student Edition  ...

Opening Day Activity for AP Statistics: Hiring Discrimination I have tried many different opening day activities for this course: Smelling Parkinson's, Distracted Driving, Crazy in Love, Find Someone, Desmos Scavenger Hunt, etc. But I wanted something new... so off to Google I went. I found that Sarah Carter ( mathequalslove ) does this activity for her Day 1 AP Stats class. And since she's awesome, I figured I'd try it too!  It is an activity that can be found in The Practice of Statistics , which IMHO, is a fantastic textbook. I like that it did not need to be modified very much in order to fit as course opener. I did tweak this a little, however. I wanted to make sure to start from the beginning of the class with the State/Plan/Do/Conclude format. I also like the fact that I will be able to bring this up later in the class for some sort of inference procedure (not there yet). I love giving students back work they completed on Day 1 and watching them realize how much they...

 I broke out the Sum of Three again. I just love this activity! I posted the student sheet in our online course, but you can email them. Students work on groups of three problems each, at their pace and in the order they want. There are four groups for this particular activity. Students may work alone, in pairs or in groups of three - I would not have groups larger than three since that would leave the others with nothing much to do. Once students have completed one group of three problems (groups are listed below), they take the sum of all of the answers and put the sum into the form (linked on the student sheet). If they are correct, they move on. If they are incorrect, they will get an error message and will need to figure out what went wrong. They do this for all problem sets until they can submit the form. Problem groups Solving Exponential Equations Solving Logarithmic Equations Solving Natural Logs Solving Challenge While I used this as a quiz review for Precalculus, it coul...

The 2020-2021 School year was a mess! Our district started as remote, moved to AA/BB day Hybrid in October, and then open to all in April. This basically meant that students could come F2F full time, F2F part time, or remain remote. They could also decide any morning which option they were feeling. Needless to say, it was crazy! Because of all the craziness, I was not able to keep up with this blog very often. Therefore, I decided to put all of the new and (hopefully) improved activities we did in Precalculus in this one post. Everything on this page is workable for all of the student options mentioned above. Applications of Exponential and Logarithmic Functions  (Drag and Drop) Exponential and Logarithmic Functions Recap (Sum of Three Activity) Key Features of Polynomial Functions (Desmos Activity) Sinusoidal Modeling Clue (Drag and Drop) Trig Identities: Escape the Building (SlidesMania) Circle Trig Recap (Deck.Toys) Right Triangle Trig Applications (Drag and Drop) Ambiguou...

Whether you introduce composite functions in Math 3 or Precalculus, here are a couple of options to spice up your lesson! Option 1 I like using this activity in my Precalculus class as an introduction to composite functions. This could be used as an exit slip on day 1 of teaching this topic or a stand alone activity on day 2. Part A (Number Line) has students evaluating composite functions with specific values then arranging the slides in numerical order. Part B (Cut and Paste) uses two functions: f(x) and g(x). Students are to evaluate both f(g(x)) and g(f(x)); if they are correct, they will find their answer on the final slide of the presentation. Students will cut the answers and place it in the appropriate location for that problem. If the learners are incorrect, their answers will (probably) not be found and they will need to redo the problem to find their mistake. Here is the key for this activity. Option 2 I used this activity as a project and allowed students to work with a ...

  I'm so excited for this digital activity. I am so tired of worksheets. Yuck! I feel like since we have been hybrid, my creativity has been lacking, so I spent all day creating something that could have been done within an hour for a worksheet. However, it was worth it!  So, I always use slidesmania's templates. They are AWESOME! So, when I saw the building with the elevator template, I had to create an escape room. Thank goodness for slidesmania! She creates the best templates...and shares for free! I love it!  While slidesmania did all of the hard work, it still took a long time to come up with the plan for my actiivty. I thought about it for a while. I finally came up with the idea of an escape room with different options which would take kids to a different room. They have to answer correctly to find the room with the key to get out of the apartment building. What took the longest you ask? Decorating the rooms...I used remove.bg to remove all of the backgrounds. Th...

  After teaching for seventeen years, I have always found students struggle with domain, range, increasing and decreasing. I have also struggled trying to find different ways to teach the concept. Since math came easy to me, I just understood those concepts; however, students really struggle to see what I see. :) This year, my students are finally "getting" the concept of domain and range. For domain, I told the kids that there was a man walking the x-axis looking up and down. Where does he start to see the graph? Where does he stop seeing the graph as he is walking the x-axis? Same for range...a little guy is climbing up the y-axis looking left and right. Where does he start to see the graph? Where does he stop seeing the graph as he climbs? It isn't perfect, but I think the kids got it. As for increasing and decreasing...I told the kids to find the min and max first. Thank God for Desmos! :) I told them to label the x-value for min and max on their graphs. Then I treate...

Ever since NC has designed the Math 3 EOC with more question types besides multiple choice, I have embraced drag and drop activities. They are just so easy for me to grade! And right now, with learning Canvas and making video lessons for all of my classes, I do not have the time to grade. However, I feel that feedback is important, so why not make it easier on myself and allow for students to practice drag and drops for the EOC?  This activity provides the students with practice on solving absolute value equations and inequalities. I also included some application problems as well. It is a short activity, but I think with online learning...it is perfect. Since I use Canvas, I share the assignment using the external tool: Google Assignments (LTI 1.3). I love it! Each student gets a copy and is very similar to Google Classroom where I can make comments on their document. I like this because not every student goes back into Canvas to view comments. However, since I am making comments ...

This project is pretty fun and I've been using it for about 20 years and I have no idea who should get credit for the idea. But like everything else this year, it got a reboot. We converted it into a Desmos project and, quite frankly, I have no idea why we didn't do this years ago! Here's the breakdown. There's a farmer and his pigs. The farmer's wife is convinced that her husband is just taking naps all day instead of working so she records his snoring and compares it the pigs' snoring. She does this by using trig... of course! Each student will have slightly different equations of snores because the periods of the two functions (Brian and the pigs) are based on the cell phone number of the student. It is a little confusing at first, so I spent some time working on the set up with my kiddos. Once they had their graphs figured out, it was smooth sailing. After graphing the snores with sinusoidal functions, the students must then compare the two graphs and decide...

  Gotta love online learning. I created this activity in Google Slides so that students could type in their answers. Only issue - I can't see their work. However, it made it very easy for me to grade. Just wanted to share some of the basic activities that I am trying while doing this online thing. :( If you would like to give your students this activity, click HERE !  ~RJ

I see a lot of teachers using Circuits, so I thought I would try to make one! I created an online interactive circuit using Google Docs for properties of logarithms. I think it would have gone a lot better if students were in class, but overall, I think they received some extra practice. One of the main problems was students not understanding where the question started and where they needed to go. I updated the activity to indicate the questions this time.  I have also been introduced to TeacherMade ! Love it! I didn't use it for this activity, but you definitely could if you saved as a PDF. Teachermade automatically grades your worksheet - which is a life saver since I have three preps, learning Canvas, creating videos, and creating online assessments. I would highly recommend using Teachermade.  If you would like to use this activity, here are the links:  SE Properties of Logs Circuit  TE Properties of Logs Circuit  ~RJ

Most of my activities are geared towards in-class learning, but that has changed now. :( Our district is in a hybrid model with most of the students still working remotely. I made this activity as a quick way for students to show understanding of solving exponential and logarithmic equations. In Canvas, I used the Google LTI add-on for students to show mastery. I really like having all of my content and assignments in Canvas, so I didn't do a link. However, it is very easy to force a copy and link it to whatever platform you are using!  Students move the answers to the correct spot. I made the questions part of the background, so the only movable items are the answers. The kids can't mess it up!  What I love? So easy to grade! :)  If you would like to use this activity, here are the links:  SE Exponential & Log Drag/Drop TE Exponential & Log Drag/Drop

 I created this Drag and Drop activity for students to practice using the equations of circles. It's nothing fancy, but definitely gets the job done! I used Google Slides to create each type of situation I would expect my students to encounter in my class. I also relied heavily on Desmos for this activity (and I hope my students did too). It's pretty straight forward. Students drag and drop different components of equations of circles such as x- and y-values of the center, the radius, and the graph.  Lots of fun had by all! Feel free to make a copy and use with your own kiddos! Student edition Teacher edition ~ssb

  This activity allows students to practice writing equations of the tangent line. Students will drag the pumpkins and the signs to create the equation. I love fall and drag and drops, so why not incorporate both? These are so easy to grade - so I try to use them from time to time.  If you would like to use this with your students, click on the links below:  SE Edition TE Edition ~RJ

I used this activity as a short check-in for students to practice division with complex numbers. If using Canvas, yo u can use the  Google Apps in an assignment or you can Force a copy to send to students.  One reason I love drag a nd dr ops, it is so easy to grade! I have been using Canvas this year, so grading is a breeze with the Google App and speedgrader. This activity doesn't take long, but still allows for practice!  Click on the links below: SE Division of Complex Numbers TE Division of Complex Numbers   ~RJ

I created this activity for students to evaluate derivatives. In this activity, students must answer the 9 questions. Once they have found all answers, they must place the sum into a Google Form. If they have answererd all correctly, then they will be able to submit the form. If not, they will need to check their answers to find the mistake. I like using Google Forms for this type of activity. For one - it provides instant feedback. For two - students must go back to find their mistakes! Most students hate looking back at their work, but I find that students learn better that way. I quickly put this together and haven't tried it out with my students yet! I double checked the answers, but you never know! My brain hurts from teaching online! :)  Click on the links below:  Sum It UP Questions Sum It UP Google Form ~RJ

  Eve n though we are learning online, I still wanted my Calc kids to have fun  while doing assignments. I normally do scavenger hun ts in the classroom, but that's a no right now,  so I created  this simple scavenger hunt in a Google Slides! It isn't the same, but at least it isn't another worksheet! :) Topics include power rule, product rule, quotient rule, chain rule, and trig derivatives. The students will start on the first slide and answer the question. They will search the entire presentation to find the answer! Once they find the slide with the correct answer, they will type the clue number on the student page. Students will then answer the question on the clue where the answer was found for #1. They will keep answering questions and finding the answers until they reach back at #1. Click on the links below:  Student Edition Teacher Edition If you have any questions, let me know!  ~RJ

I had a blast today teaching piecewise functions in NC Math 3; and that sounds crazy.  I used the Desmos activity Randi Metz created as my intro/discovery lesson and moved right in to using Desmos to graph "MATH" using translations with piecewise functions. Wow, they were all engaged the entire class. They also really amazed me because this is only the sixth day of the semester and not one kiddo said "I can't do this" or "math is too hard". They just graphed their little hearts out! I snipped several of my favorites. As you can see, they were not perfect, but it was awesome being able to watch them get creative! Feel free to use these with your students, I highly suggest doing the discovery lesson first- it will make your teaching life so much easier! Piecewise Intro/Discovery Graph "MATH" Using Translations and Piecewise Functions ~ssb