About Me

I have been a middle school teacher since 2006. I started teaching 7th grade and then moving up to 8th grade after about 5 years. I teach both a pre-algebra and an algebra class.

My main goal is to keep my students active, engaged, and challenged. In my classroom, my students and I are constantly learning new things, working in groups, and challenging ourselves! I have hand-crafted many one-of-a-kind activities that ignite the curiosity of my middle school students.

Together, we are on an journey of educational awesomeness, where boredom is banished and learning becomes something students WANT to do!

Lessons

I have been teaching 8th-grade pre-algebra and algebra for many years and have become an expert on the content. My lessons are tailored to exactly what the students need to prepare them for the end-of-year assessment and success in their future math classes.

Lesson Content

Each lesson explicitly teaches along with the Pennsylvania Common Core State Standards.

The lessons typically start with basic skills and get harder as students are challenged with applying the skills from earlier in the lesson in new ways.

Video Lesson

Each lesson comes with a full-length video of me teaching the same lesson. This is great for students to use if they are absent, on vacation, or if I am absent for my substitute to show to my students.

Also, students can always get a refresher on a lesson if they want by rewatching any part of the lesson again.

Skill Check

At the end of each lesson, there is a skill check that typically has 8-10 questions that reinforce the skills from the lesson.

In my classroom, I have the students work on this in small groups and finish at home if needed.

Assessments

Each assessment is not testing the student's ability to memorize the class content but to apply the skills they have learned. The tests are only 10-12 questions long but are quite rigorous.

Practice Test

Each test/quiz comes with a practice version I give a few days before the real assessment. The practice test allows students to see if they are ready for the real test/quiz, ask any questions, and know what skills they need to go back and study.

Test

The actual test/quiz looks very much like the practice. It has the same number of questions and typically similar types of questions. If students have done all the skill checks and did well on the practice test, then they should do fine on the real test.

Connect the Dots

Students will answer questions from the various units and then connect the answers to the questions to make a picture.

Video Game Activities

I have made a video game review activity for nearly every unit(and more on the way). These awesome activities are very motivating for the students and they WANT to finish.

Escape Rooms

Students try to solve clues(using math) to escape from a scenario. Some of the escape rooms are run through Google Forms, but I also have 2 classroom sets of breakout boxes that I put together with real locks, and black lights, which are a real treat.

Reveal the Hidden Message

Students answer questions to reveal the answer to a joke. These jokes are typical 'Dad' jokes and I love hearing the groans of the students when they get the joke.

BINGO, ZAP, Jeopardy

I do a variety of whole class review activities from BINGO, ZAP(A game I made), Jeopardy, as well as online games like Kahoot and Blooket.

And More!

I'm always coming up with new projects and activities that I wish I would have had when I was a student.

My goal is that students never dread coming to math class.

Making Learning Fun