Blogosphere ... Good Ideas Round 4

I haven't had as much time as I'd like for reading around the blogosphere in the past week.  But even short visits reveal such awesome ideas!

Mary Doom shares ideas for the first days of school.  I had created a few stations that I want to use early on, but Mary's ideas are so very creative.  She has 5 days of seating ideas in order to watch students interact with one another.  She also has nonroutine problems that she has adapted from her travels around the blogosphere!  I look forward to reading more about the various plans for the first days of school!

Rationalizing Denominators isn't the most engaging of topics. Pam's intro to this lesson caught my eye, "It gives students opportunities to notice patterns on their own, a chance to share and discuss those ideas as well as consider ideas from their classmates."  I love the idea of an open sort, inviting students to justify their groupings, and building from there.  And she finishes with a super idea for routine practice ... she requires a few specific problems and then asks students to choose a few more on their own.  Both the open sort and choices for routine practice are great strategies for differentiating instruction.  I'm thinking about our first two units ... characteristics of functions and systems of equations ... I'm sure there are applications to those units!

Last, I've been reading Teach Like a Pirate ... a very popular book right now.  I decided to read it when I read Finding Joy in 6th Grade's post.  Then I discovered that quite a few elementary teachers have been reading the book and linking their posts at this site.  Even though I teach high school, I find reading the elementary posts very inspiring.  (By the way, as I read the book, one of the concepts jumped out at me ... immersion!  When the students are in the room, be engaged with them 100%.  I know that I am most of the time ... but I can think back to days last year when I had other tasks to do, and I just wanted the students to work on their own.  It would be much better to stay engaged with them and save the "other stuff" for later!)

Much thanks to all the teachers who share their journeys online!

What treasures have you discovered online in the past week or two?