First day of school, the aftermath

Today was a great day!

The kids loved the aluminum boat activity. I'm not sure if I would ever do it in a 1st period class again (3 minute passing periods are a bit ridiculous for stuff like this) but if I had this as the last class of the day or before lunch/prep, then yes.

Doing the visual pattern with my Math 6 was also great. I had a few kids tell me that it was their favorite class of the day and that they had fun. I did have quite a few students who went against their initial judgment of what they noticed because they thought "This is math class, I can't say it looks like a castle." Yes you can! Do it. I think it looks like a castle too! Yes there's math in it but that doesn't mean you can't put down the other stuff you notice.

I realized while talking to my husband last night, my main goal for the year is to instill a love of math for my students. I really don't care about test scores too much (I mean I do, but...). If a kid leaves my classroom realizing they actually enjoy math, that's what I really care about. That's why I'm a math teacher.

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