Word Problem mania

Happy weekend, people! I don't know about everyone's schedule across the nation, but I think it's safe to say most of us only have TWO more weeks of school before a nice long Christmas break! And for yours truly, it's only ONE more week before I get to take a nice long trip to Disney World with the family, and then only TWO more DAYS when I get back!!! As Mickey Mouse would say, "YIPPPEEEE!"

In other news worth of a "YIPPPEEEE!!" Learn Me Good has passed the 100,000 mark! This happened sometime about 2 days ago, thanks to majorly increased traffic from the Christmas Carnival! What can I say, I'm a numbers guy, so this is exciting to me.

This week's Mr. Teacher column on education.com is titled, "No More Field Trips," and it is a bit of a lament, seeing as how we were told at the beginning of the year that there was no money to pay for buses to take us anywhere. We're going to have a few people come to us, though, so all is not as Dickensian as it may seem...

A question for everyone reading this: Have you ever read Joel's blog -- So You Want to Teach? If so, you know what an incredibly insightful look at the teaching profession it is. Joel is a music teacher in South Texas, and (unlike SOME people attached to my head) his posts are not just feeble attempts to garner laughter, but rather deeply thoughtful musings about ways teachers can improve themselves, things to destress, and strategies to be more effective with kids and colleagues.

Currently, Joel seems to be concerned that his blog has shown up on some "marketing" searches, but I think that anybody who reads it on a regular basis (which I certainly do) knows where the meat of the matter is. The guy's really good. If you have NOT ever read So You Want to Teach? for whatever reason, stop what you are doing and go peruse the archives! You'll enjoy it, I guarantee!

Another great blogger, the Educat (she's ramblin! and quite possibly gamblin!) has tagged me with a meme she made up herself. I don't particularly enjoy memes (especially having to tag other people, as I always feel like I'm passing on a chain letter), but since the Educat broke her own rule not to meme I feel I can do the same for her.

Her meme is called Seven Posts about the Same Topic. Her directions are as follows:

Find old entries on your blog that center around the same topic and give us the links to them. We'll get to know your back catalog and your hits will shoot up (even if it's false inflation and only for a short time).

She chose the topic of State Testing. I probably have at least 7 posts about that topic as well (including one of my favorites, with the Six Flags height stick analogy here), but I think I'll choose a different topic.

My topic will be WORD PROBLEMS!! (I am, after all, a math teacher)

We'll start with the most recent example, which was relayed to me by another teacher at the school. That of a word problem which showed up written on the inside of a playground slide. When she first told me there was some grafitti I was a bit worried, but as long as all the computation is shown, I'm ok.

Next is a selection from last year, where I was big into suggesting the my students make the problems relative to their own lives. Who cares if Larry bought 14 cupcakes! Let's say YOU bought 14 cupcakes! Or someone you KNOW bought 14 cupcakes! My kids worked one of my teaching buddies into a problem with great results.

A short post here, where one of our math tutors came and told me about a rather frugal comment made to her by one of my kids.

Here's a post about some creative thinking from one of my new kids when it came to a word problem where the answer seemed mathematically obvious. Way to think outside the box!

Almost 2 years ago, I thought I had discovered that the 4 Gospel writers might very well have been poor math students.

Here's one from way back when, from a time I had my kids write their own word problems and share them with the class. Some were good, some not so much.

And to wrap things up, here's an idea I had for a brand new game show called Are You More Cynical Than a 3rd Grade Teacher? Word problems of a different sort.


OK, I think that's 7! Now comes the crappy part of memes, when I need to tag other people to continue the wave. I think I'll start with my "ghosts" from the recent Scrooge Carnival and tag:

Joel
Elementary History Teacher
Mrs. Bluebird
Mamacita

PS Don't forget to sign my guestbook at the bottom of the page!