Word Problems

I knew I wanted to do some sort of warm-up this year. Finding one that worked was a bit more of a challenge. I finally settled into doing word problems. The requirement is that you have to show your work, write a complete sentence answering the question, and ask another question that could be answered from the information we have.

They're all handwritten on chart paper. I went through and typed most of them up. See them here if you need some sort of inspiration. (Or in your feedreader. It took me a bit to figure out how to get it up with blogger.) Warning that the quality of the problems vary.

I'm leaving the last warm-up word problem on the board. It's a reminder to myself of the situation here.

This year’s graduating class is 1/3 the size of this fall’s freshmen class. If we had 45 freshmen this year and assume that the seniors entered SFIS with a similar class size, how many students are not graduating this year?

Edit: Hrumph. Link not working yet. I'm leaving for my summer travels in the morning and need to pack. I'll update when I figure this out...

Goodness gracious

Classroom management becomes much more difficult when all of the other schools in the area are having a snow day. Then my students came into third period (the one where I was scheduled to be observed today) telling me of an early dismissal in 30 minutes. Lovely.

After the buses left, I stopped by the office to check my box. Some of the sample textbooks I requested a week ago have arrived. I jumped up and down, clapped my hands, and said "Goody, goody gumdrops." Wow.

The timing means I actually have time to look at the books. Not thoroughly, but enough to be excited to have more materials to draw on for inspiration. I should have started requesting samples earlier.

Requesting Curriculum Advice

Last Wednesday, while I was teaching Algebra II, I was informed that I would be teaching General Math starting this week. Or rather, I was asked to teach it at the same time that I was teaching Geometry. I refused to do that, but was put down for it anyway.

Things have worked out so that I do not have to teach two courses in one period, but I am up to four preps. Only one has a textbook or any curriculum that's worth using.

I am figuring out where to get resources online for the algebra and geometry courses. I've gotten in the hang of pulling material from my shelf of sample Algebra textbooks. They're not outstanding lessons. Not the most interesting notes. They're plagiarized left and right, but it was working for me.

I have no resources for this new course. The principal told me that he thought it would be "easy to teach." The curriculum coordinater directed me to edhelper, but I can't help but feel that students who have been worksheeted on the same material since elementary school are not going to learn it any better this year if I just give them worksheets.

For my diagnostic, I used California's released questions for fourth graders. (South Dakota doesn't release questions.) The students told me that they want to work on fractions, decimals, and percents. They want to learn exponents. Looking at the first part of the diagnostic, they need to learn multiplication and division first. Or alongside. Or....how do I work this?

I've requested sample textbooks from various companies, hoping that I'll find something that will help me with this latest class. (My favorite, based solely on online descriptions, is Fantasy Sports Math via my mother and Only a Game.)

Any resource recommendations from anyone out there? What do you use to help teach high schoolers who are at an elementary level?