A Little Friday and Saturday Fun!

Friday at school was a day that 8th grade students got the opportunity to Job Shadow an adult of their choice. Students were given a "Job Shadowing Packet" where they could choose an adult of who they wanted to job shadow and get the day as an excused absence, granted they complete a little packet on what they learned during the day, what they experienced, and how they could use it in their future. So needless to say...our Team 8<3 was a little small on Friday. My classes which originally have between 13 and 25 students, were down to roughly 7 and 8 students.

Instead of having all our "Job Shadowing" students miss new core subject material, we decided that our non-Job Shadow students needed a little career experience of their own! One of my lovely teammates, Katie Hagy, scheduled two wonderful guest speakers for us to begin the day. A mom of one of our students, Allison Harvey, and a local Park Ranger. Allison Harvey is the Town Administrator of Clover. She gave a wonderful presentation and the students were super excited to hear about how the town is run. Our Park Ranger also did a fantastic job of informing the students of all the pieces of his job that most of them don't realize! The kids were surprised to know that there are times that Park Rangers actually set fires instead of putting them out!

Later in the day I partnered with my Language Arts teammate, Susan Hopper, for a joint-career project for the students. Students used the SCOIS website to research their dream job getting all the information including salary, skill levels, education needed, job duties and more before creating a Wanted Poster through an app of their choice on their iPads containing all their research. The students put together some really neat posters! Check them out:...Plus check out where I got the idea here!

Saturday's are typically time to relax, spend some time with my hubby and our dog Brutus, get a little shopping in, and just enjoy a little time off from the school world. This Saturday; however, I got the chance to spend the day with some pretty awesome kids. This is my first year working with our MathCounts team at Clover Middle. We have three coaches: Ms. Ammons, Mrs. Fayssoux, and myself. We have practices Tuesday and Thursday mornings before school from 7:40-8:15am, and after school on Mondays and Thursdays from 3:30-4:30pm. On Saturday we attended the Midland Math Meet at Midlands Technical College. This was Clover's second appearance at the meet, but my first. This was basically...an awesome experience! 

Here's the way it works: When you arrive you register for the meet. Students get a colored name tag containing one shape (there are 5 colors: red, blue, orange, purple, and yellow. there are 8 shapes: triangles, squares, rhombus, parallelogram, right triangle, pentagon, hexagon, and circle). Our 12 students were separated throughout the 40 teams that were within the competition. Teachers checked in at a separate table and are assigned a similar card. Teachers or volunteers are then "Team Leader" of that group. I was given the Red Triangles; "Best Team Ever." I had one 6th grade student from our school, one 6th grade student from Crossroad Middle, one 5th grader from Carolina School of Inquiry, and one 7th grader. It was an awesome team!

Let's Go Red Triangles!

Once students/teachers/volunteers got their assignment, we entered the auditorium and sat by groups. There were five warm-up questions displayed on a giant screen for students to work on while other registered and got checked in. After the introduction we were given a schedule of five events for the day. We started at Math Jeopardy. This is pretty self-explanatory, but it was a fun game!

Next we moved to the Individual Effort competition. Here students had nine questions that they worked on individually. Our score was compiled by the number of questions we got correct as a team. There were a total of nine questions, and we had four team members. Students enjoyed this game because of the clickers used to enter their answers.

After Individual Effort we moved to TeamWork. At this station groups worked together to solve three missions. Students were presented with each mission individually and then given eight minutes to solve it. Students enjoyed this activity but found it the most challenging since they had to submit one answer as a group.

We got a little refreshment break after the first three activities before moving Spin to Win. This game was based on Wheel of Fortune. Again, this game and activity was pretty self explanatory. We actually came in first place out of the groups we competed with in this activity and my Red Triangles could not have been more excited!

Our last activity was Hands On. This was pretty awesome. Students worked together with manipulative to solve four to five little puzzles. There was a students from Midlands Tech College at each station who helped talk with students and encouraged them to remember to work together!

After all five activities, we ate lunch, and then went back to the auditorium by group for the awards ceremony. No Red Triangles won anything...booooo...but two students from Clover did! One student was a part of the team who scored the highest in Spin to Win, one student was a member of a team who scored the highest in TeamWork, and actually...Ms. Ammons', our head coach, team won the award for the highest scoring in Hands On! Overall it was a great day and we really enjoyed it :)

Way to go Ms. Ammons!

Congrats Nolan & Matthew!

Our Fabulous 12 Students from Clover Middle

It was by far one of the best experiences I've had as a teacher. It was awesome to see so many students, from so many schools and grade levels work together and have a great time working with Math. I will definitely be helping with Math Counts next year!

Well it's Sunday and it's time for this teacher to get a little rest and catch the Grammy's...
Until next time :)