Pi Day Plans and Activities

Celebrate Pi Day!Pi Day is the biggest mathematical holiday that is celebrated in my middle school.  Years ago, I had students bring in pies and we did a few fun pi day activities in my own classroom.  Today, students at my school bring in pies and, along with the many pi day activities taking place in individual classrooms, over 1,000 students celebrate by eating pie at lunchtime.  PTA volunteers usually help to organize and distribute the pies.

Pi Day Plans, Activities, Videos, and More

The purpose of this post is to share with you some ideas that you might like to use in your classroom on Pi Day (March 14 – the date that corresponds to the first 3 digits of pi).  I will include links to two fun pi videos that I plan to share in my class, funny pi cartoons, and a link to the simple activity that I use to help students discover pi for themselves. [Read more…]

Math Warm-ups are Awesome!

Middle School Math Warm-upsEvery day when my students enter the classroom, they have a set of 5 warm-up problems awaiting them. The first 5-10 minutes of each class period are spent working on these problems, checking them, and getting some mini-lessons in along the way.

There are a number of important reasons that I love to start out each math class period with warm-ups.  In this post I will share with you how I use warm-ups, why I like them so much, my student work expectations, and the strong impact that I believe warm-ups have had on my state test results.  I will also explain the system I use to implement my warm-up program. [Read more…]

20 Questions Fun Activity

I have enjoyed the opportunity to interact with many of you and to share ideas and resources with you over the years. I hope that you have found some value at DigitalLesson.com and in receiving our Middle School Math Treasures newsletter. 

I look forward to sharing many exciting ideas and resources that you can take back into your middle school math classroom

Today I would like to share with you a quick, fun, critical thinking activity.  I often use this activity on the day before a school vacation (Winter Break, Spring Break, or even summer vacation).  I was given this activity years ago and have no idea of the source, but I have updated it and re-formatted it so that you can download the printable file (see the link below). [Read more…]