Summer of 21

 The Summer of 2021

This summer is about rejuvenation.  The year that has been was extremely tiring as you all know.  I missed teaching in person - science is a hands on learning subject which is much more difficult when not in person. I have been reading a lot of fiction - my favourite activity by far - currently enjoying a wide variety and still working through the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child. Also getting out for daily walks and gardening.  The last has some frustrations - apparently the earwigs and squirrels don't want me growing any vegetables. I also got back on the bike after a year away - see the post titled Broken for the story of why.  There might be some short trips and an old shed demo in the plan too but nice thing about summer is you can be flexible about these things.

Summer is also about reflection. Thinking about what went well and what needs to be improved for next year.  I change things frequently - always learning new things but also different kids need different things sometimes. Been reading books like Thinking Classroom by Peter Liljedahl and picked up but not yet started Gradeless and Eduprotocols Math Edition.  There will be some new elements come September in my classroom.  

Our MoE, and thus the school board, has not yet set out a plan for September so I don't know if I will be rotating to classrooms (makes like more difficult for projects and prep) or if the students will come to me.  I had heard we will start as the former but could move the latter but nothing has been announced yet. 

Summer is about learning.  I have been doing conferences - love the virtual conference!  Changemaker21, WeVideo, EverFi, Hive Summit are on the list - current or future.  As mentioned above, a few books to be read too.

We don't know what September will bring.  I hope with vaccination and protocols we can be at school and safely doing so. 

Travelling Science Teacher

 Due to the pandemic restrictions, intermediate students are not allowed to rotate to the different classes and must stay in one room at my school.  So my homeroom is in my room, where all of my science materials are located.  

I must now travel with whatever I happen to need for the block. 

This is a learning process.  Especially for experiments and build projects.  

I was doing an experiment today and realized, once class had started that I had forgotten one of the materials! Argghh.  I was on the upper level and could not just pop into my room to find it as I cannot just leave the students unattended for that long.  

Frustrated but we adjusted and got the experiment done anyway.  

Two classes are on the upper level and two on the lower level where my room is located.  

Trying to ensure that all things needed, including any materials for projects is another level of planning to do.  

At this point my technology room (power equipment like drill press also not being used - a disappointment but I will find a way to do building and design.

The added pain, literally, is that my clavicle and shoulder are still healing - slower than we'd like - so lugging stuff up and down the stairs is not pleasant. 

Just a quick post.

Thanks to all the PLN out there (real and digital) who help keep me motivated, entertained and inspired.

To my US friends, Happy Thanksgiving!  Stay safe everyone!

Broken

Hello friends,

I see I haven't written in quite some time.  It is difficult to do so now as, you see, I fell off my bike and broke some bones a few weeks back.  3 ribs and a clavicle to be precise.  It has not been a pleasant experience all the way around.  I honestly do not know how I could function without my loving spouse to help me as I cannot use my right arm above the elbow.

So amidst a pandemic and worrying about going back to school - I also have to deal with healing my broken bones, rehabilitation in order to regain movement and not do things I normally love to do in the summer like walk Indy, ride my bike, drive places, and chores (well I might not love to do these but it is the time to get them done so they aren't getting done). 

I can type for a certain amount of time but even that is stressing on the whole musculature of the shoulder and upper arm which no doubt, is also damaged.

I will persevere.  I will survive but it is not fun.  

At least I can still read and I can do a certain amount of computer time.  I am taking a Data Science course through Stanford with Jo Boaler, and doing some online conferences like the Hive Summit and Building Math Minds and the Pear Fair.  I will get through.  

Take care all. 

Math is Visual

Math is thought of by many people as a numbers thing - whole, fractions, integers with maybe some geometry thrown in there.  

But math is really about patterns and visual representations.  Seeing the visual for a mathematical concept connects different parts of the brain and can create real understanding.  

I love Jon Orr and Kyle Pearce for the way they go about this visual interpretation of math. I refer to all of their websites a great deal.  A great website created by Jon Orr is http://mathisvisual.com/ which shows the evolution of a concept visually.  And there are concepts from all the strands available.  

I, of course, like many in my age bracket did not learn math this way.  I learned the rote, memorization and algorithm way.  Mind you, I've got a very good memory so it worked for me.  But until I read Jo Boaler's Mathematical Mindsets and started really exploring the concepts in a visual manner, I truly did not understand exactly why some of the concepts worked at a basic level in a way I could use to explain it to my students.  

There is a ton of great resources available to use to bring the visual into your math class: OpenMiddle, YummyMath, Desmos, visualpatterns.org, fractiontalks.com, youcubed.org, Tap into Teen Minds - just to name a few.  

Everyone is a math person.  I truly believe it to be true.  So if you think you aren't, well, you are wrong.   
Math is not about getting the right answer, it is not about speed, it is full of mistakes and is a journey towards understanding things in our world.  

“But mathematics, real mathematics, is a subject full of uncertainty; it is about explorations, conjectures, and interpretations, not definitive answers.” 
~Jo Boaler

Happy New Year!

As 2019, and a decade, recede into memory I look back at my many decades on this beautiful planet and think about where I've come from and then forward to where I am going. 

My #oneword2019 was KINDNESS.  I always try to be kind but sometimes, like any human, my need to put me first overrides and I might not be as kind as I like.  This includes my time in the classroom.  I have been grumpy and short tempered at times.  There have always been challenging students, and as I get older, I seem to be a little less patient.  I had my students create #oneword goals for the year and explain them on Flipgrid in September as a way to get to know them.  Perhaps we should revisit them next week.  

After listening to Jam Gamble yesterday, I have come up with my #oneword2020.  It is VOLUME.   I am a talkative and loud person.  Sometimes loud is needed and sometimes it isn't.  I am working on my volume control.   

Connected to it is CALM.  I get quite animated and loud when excited/agitated/irritated and realize I need to be more calm.  Elsa, I think (I haven't actually seen the movie but have heard a number of clips) said it best....

So here's to 2020.  A year of calm and controlled volume! 

Off to Bring IT Together!

Making Math Fun!

I like to use gamification in my class - especially Breakouts and Scavenger Hunts.  

Tomorrow I am off to Niagara Falls to present at the Bring IT Together conference about my passion. 

I will explain a little then we will build a breakout together so attendees can go back to class with something to try. 

If you are at the conference, hope to say Hi in person!

Math and Science in the Kitchen

So this all started simply enough, as most experiments do, with a simple inquiry.  My friend and her kids want to have a baking day with me. (I do like to bake).  I figured cookies or maybe pie.  When the kids were asked, they said they wanted to make a Galaxy Mirror Cake.  A what?  

And that began the research into Mirror Glaze - a shiny, almost reflective coating from the French style of pastry for typically small cakes called entremets.  

I was a little daunted by doing a whole cake with smooth frosting so I asked "What about cake pops?"  There is no evidence anywhere that this has been attempted before with a mirror glaze.  Well, let's just explore the idea and find out, shall we?

Questions to answer:
Do cake pops need to be coated in chocolate first?
Will the glaze stick to them in raw or coated at all?
And, can I make mirror glaze to begin with at all?

I gathered supplies including cake, icing, white chocolate, gelatin, sticks, and gel colour.

Step 1: Bake a cake.  I like to make my own but I cheated to facilitate speed and used a boxed cake. 

Cake Ready to go into oven

Cake out of the oven

So far so good. (Was not worried as I have made a lot of cakes before now.) Have to let it cool before we move onto the cake pops.

But there was a problem. If I was to coat some in chocolate they need to stand up to cool or you get a flat side - I wanted nice ball shapes.  I do not own a cake pop stand, nor did I want to invest in one.  So what does a Science teacher do?  I made one!  A box from the dollar store, a little packing tape and an awl.  Ta-da - a cake pop stand. 

Step 2: Make the cake pops.  This requires half the cake and half a tub of icing. Again, I like my own icing but cheated and used store bought to speed things up.  

 Put half the cake in a bowl and crumble up.

Mix in half a tub of icing (I used cream cheese but any will do) until mixed thoroughly.  Many people prefer to do this with their hands - I am not one of those people.  I like to use a big spoon. 

 Roll into balls with your hands.  Make sure they are firm enough.  I found that I made mine too big, so about 2-3 cm diameter would be better.  Mine were about 4-5 cm.   

Now need to add sticks.  This requires some melted chocolate.  I used half dark and half semi-sweet which I melted in a mug in the microwave.  Caution: It is easy to burn it so do small increments and stir.  Dip the stick into the chocolate and push into the ball.  

 Once all of the balls have sticks, put into the fridge for 20 minutes or so until the chocolate is set, and the balls have firmed up a bit. 

Using the chocolate in the mug, I coated half of my cake pops in chocolate.  I discovered mine were too large, and thus too heavy to dunk (that little problem was eaten shortly thereafter 😃 ) so I had to spoon chocolate over and rotate to cover.  Tap a few times to remove excess chocolate.  You can use white chocolate too but I find it is more finicky.  The wafers are also an option.   

After the chocolate had set in the fridge, all of the cake pops went down into the freezer.  They need to be frozen for the mirror glaze step. 

Step 3: The mirror glaze was something I had never made before so even after watching a half dozen videos, I wasn't quite sure what would happen.  It is actually not that complicated if you are prepared. It is kinda messy too.  

It is good to gather all the materials needed.  Sugar, good white chocolate, gelatin, food colouring gel, sweetened condensed milk, and a candy thermometer.  Also needed was some bowls, a pot, water and measuring cups.  

Water, sugar, sweetened condensed milk heating on stove

Blooming the gelatin.  (Mix gelatin powder with water). 

You can see the sticky note in the background.  Here is where knowing how to work with fractions is helpful.  I only wanted a half recipe of glaze.  So I had to half everything - writing it down helps make sure you don't put in the full amount (which was on the phone). 

Once the sugar mixture starts to boil, need to add the bloomed gelatin.  You can see it has firmed up.  Stir it in until it dissolves. 

Pour that onto the white chocolate and let sit for 5 minutes.  Then whisk until smooth.  If you have fresh good chocolate, it will be smooth.  If your chocolate is old or poor quality, it might have lumps in which case you need to run it through a sieve. 

Divide it up into however many colours you want to use, and mix in food colouring.  I had black, purple and pink.  The first two colours are gel based and good for the dark colours.  I used regular food colouring - couple of drops of red - for the pink.  I like the depth of the gel ones better.   

The glaze needs to be about 90 degrees Fahrenheit (37 C) and thus the candy thermometer is needed.  If it cools too much it will be too thick but can be warmed up in the microwave for 10 s at a time.  

I used a separate bowl to catch the runoff, and poured base colour onto pop.  I then added the other colours.  To do all the cake pops I had to reheat all the colours several times.  You can see that the pink thickened up too fast.  I also added some edible glitter to a few.  Can you tell which ones had chocolate underneath? 

Conclusion:

I can make a mirror glaze and it is not very difficult.  Timing is important as the viscosity of the glaze changes rapidly.  The raw or chocolate covered state of the pops does not affect the glaze. And yes, you can mirror glaze a cake pop.

What you cannot see is the mess.  I had black and purple glaze drips all over the counter.  Cleanup adds some time. All in all it was a fun exploration. 

See you in September

I haven't been posting much - only one post this year.  So I thought I would do a little review.

After the thrill of basketball season, some of the things that stand out were:

• We got a new gym floor and it looks awesome.  
• Presented at the Ontario Summit but focused on doing Breakouts in Math, and other fun things.
• Grade 8 graduation was again bittersweet - love seeing my students grow and move on but sad to see them go too.  Parent council (especially Nicole and Brenda) created a very beautiful evening. 

I decided to push my comfort zone and applied to speak at TedXKitchener and at BIT19.  Haven't heard if they have been accepted yet but just applying was a leap.

The focus of our end of year meeting was reflection and relationships.  I have seen Rita Pierson's Ted Talk many times but it is still moving.  I have always believed in building relationships with my students.  Students learn best from someone they like, who believes in them, and when lessons connect to their real lives.  You are also what you say to yourself and what others say to you.  So I try to remove negative talk from my classroom including self talk.  Henry Ford said "If you think you can or you think you can't, you are right."

Next year at Lincoln our focus will be on kindness.  I like the simple character traits that go with it.  Being kind is not just to others but to oneself though and that is what summer does for me.  I exert a lot of energy during the school year and in the summer a little self care is important.  I read, bike, walk, garden and nap.  I also do personal PD - got a few books to look into or reexamine, and I do virtual summits - Hive Summit, Make Math Meaningful Summit and Ditch Summit.  

Next year has changes.  I will still teach Math and Science but will have a grade 7 homeroom and that is new.  We will learn together.  I do work with a great group of teachers and we help each other too. 

   See you in September... 

Basketball Championships

Basketball Championships

This week I was anxious and excited.  For the first time my boys earned their way into our divisional championship game.

I have been coaching basketball for more than 10 years.  I have been at Lincoln Heights for 7.  

My team this year was grade 8 heavy with many returning players.  I focus on teamwork and strategy when playing.  I use a lot of plays with options so that the boys need to think on the court and react to the defense rather than a play set in stone.  It is not typical for this level of basketball but being a math and science teacher, logic and strategizing are my forte. 

The boys practice 4 days a week, with two of them being at 7:15 in the morning.  It is a long season starting about mid December.   This year was a little tough as we lost many days of practice due to cancelled buses or snow days. 

I am extremely proud of the boys for their grit and fortitude, their endurance and ability to work together.  

The boys brought home the first championship for our school in fine style.  They played solid defense and did not allow the other team to regroup much.  

Thank you boys for achieving the goal we set in December.  Thank you Grady for your leadership on the court.  

#proudcoach #happycoach 

Ontario Summit 2018

Ontario Summit 2018

The EdTech Ontario Summit has been my favourite conference for the last few years.  I will again be presenting on GoFormative, one of my favourite tools as I've mentioned in previous posts.  

If you see me there, make sure you say Hi!  Love to meet and catch up with you!

You can find my resources here:

Ontario Summmit 2018 resources

Pi Day

Pi Day

March break here in our school board always seems to coincide with Pi Day.  March 14.  
3.1415926 is what is embedded into my memory.  They have actually found over 9 trillion digits of Pi to date.  

I always eat Pie on Pi day.  I always make my Pie for Pi day.   

I love Pi Day!

So I made No Bake Oreo Pie this year.  Still enjoying it as it lives in freezer.  Yum.

 

My Students give me Reasons to Teach

Relationships

Teaching is more about the connections and relationships we have with our colleagues and students than with the curriculum.  Don't get me wrong, passion for the subject is important as without passion there is no enthusiasm over the long term for what we are teaching our students.  But greater than that is the idea that if we get to know our students as people rather than a number or a grade, then they will be more inclined to respect and enjoy the learning journey.  My students are not perfect - they make poor choices sometimes but they are young and learn.  Hopefully the next time they make a better choice.  Sometimes personalities clash - human nature dictates that will happen.  Sometimes we have more connects to some than others like anywhere in life.  All students should be treated fairly all the same.  

My students make be laugh, make me cry, inspire me and give me a reason to come to school every day.  

I write poetry for fun.  I wrote them a poem for Valentine's Day. 

  

Math and Poetry

Math is Poetry

Math is a poetry all of its own.  

Language can be beautiful too and as some of you know I like to dabble in poetry.

I have seen this video before, but thought I'd share it as it combines (first 4 minutes) of both math and poetry but rest is good too.    The math people will laugh at all the same place I do.

Enjoy!

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!

No matter what holiday you do celebrate, this time of year is about being kind and generous, and, grateful for what we have in our lives.

I am grateful for my family and friends who support me and make me laugh. This also includes my school family who are a great group of people to be around every day. 

I am grateful for my students who become a family for me every year.  They all have something special.

I am grateful for my PLN who help me to learn new things and show me that collaboration and learning is a global endeavor to help our students succeed. 

I am grateful for where I live.  A great community with space to ride and freedom to say what I think.

Wherever you happen to be in the next two weeks, take some time to enjoy the lights,  and those around you and maybe a little quiet time to recharge your batteries. 

 

Remembrance Day

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada (Veterans Day in the US I believe).  A day to remember those who have and are fighting for our freedom.  

I was particularly sad on this one.   

It has been a rough start to the school year as my mother got very ill and passed away in September.   She was born during the Blitzkrieg. 

So I thought a lot about her during the last post, as well as my Grandfather who fought in WWII.  The freedom we have to learn, to love, to be who we want to be are a gift. 

Lest We Forget

New Year Almost Here

New Year

It is almost a new year, at least as far as teachers go.  August 1st means many teachers start to turn their eyes towards September and planning and supplies and setup and .....

I am excited to meet and learn with my students this year.  

Math and Science are about many things, but exploration and finding patterns are key.  We try, maybe things don't work out, and we try again.

Prepare yourself for some adventure!

End of the year

End of the Year 

Well, the end of the school year arrived. Reports were done.  End of year trips were done.  Graduation came and went.  The classroom is packed up for the summer.  I, and the students, learned a lot this year.  I had a very good group this past school year.  They were enthusiastic learners, and were willing to try all of my new ideas including a variety of new technology ones.  I will miss them a great deal.  See my previous post as to how they were my muses.

The day 5 math challenge was born out of a triple math period.  Both grade 8's had them.  I read a lot from Jo Boaler the last two summers, and, wanted to implement her principles.  I think that most important for my students was that mistakes are okay, and even important, and struggle is good.  It is okay to be a little slower as sometimes deep thinking takes time. I wanted them to also feel successful in math.  I wanted them to be active.  At graduation, the day 5 challenge came up many times as the best memory of grade 8.  I will be doing it again next year.  

We did many challenges and then I discovered Digital Breakouts (see another previous post).  The kids loved them.  They asked for them.  I delivered.  They take time to make but I got to be faster.  We learned together.  It was great!

The other thing I did this year was spend more time getting to know my students as people.  I spent breaks with them just listening and hanging out without any of the academic pressures.  I started this as an endeavor to be an external conscience but discovered that I liked listening to their stories.  It did help them think about what they did and said when I was in the room, but also when not in the room as they never knew when I would appear.  They claimed I had "psick ninja skills".  I just call it good timing, listening and awareness.  I also think that students respond better to you when they know you care about them as people.  It is true.   I also teach better as I get a better understanding of their interests, their needs and their strengths.   

As summer really kicks off, the problem is now disconnecting.  I actually do miss them.  I would often spend more time with them than my own family at home. So it is a bit hard trying to adjust.   Life will go on.  There are summer projects, reading and vacation time as well as planning for next year to do.  Indy, is already pretty happy as he gets to spend more time with me.  

Happy to be sprawled on the Deck

I wish them a fun summer.  I wish them good luck next year.  And I hope they remember some of the key lessons we learned no matter who teaches them in the future.   My students this year have been my inspiration, my raison d'etre and because of them I am a better teacher.   Future students will benefit.  

Enjoy your summer.  Recharge your batteries.  And, make math fun.  It really is worth it.