Roller Coaster Ride to Christmas Break! Hang on Tight!

Holy Cow! Just looking at all that is in stock for the next 15 school days until Christmas Break, makes my head spin! At Ac2E Middle School. our students & staff will be busy busy busy! :) Time to bust out those student planners Falcons and stay organized so that you leave for Christmas Break stress-free and happy about the results of Benchmark Exams & Term Grades. :)

Make sure to Keep these Dates in Mind:

• Progress Reports go out the week of December 1.
• 8th grade Math & Algebra District Benchmarks December 9.
• 8th grade Social Studies District Benchmark December 16.
• 8th grade Science District Benchmark December 17.
• School Field Trip December 18.  

Thanksgiving Break :)

Our Seminars were a huge success! The students who attended my "Lets Coast It" Seminar loved it! They were so excited to go home and show off their creations to their friends and family. Time to start thinking what my next seminar topic will be.. Ideas? Suggestions?

With the holiday fast approaching, its time to take a minute and list off a couple of things to be thankful for:

1, The light the Lord shines on the path that I try lead in His name.
2. A loving family & friends.
3. The love of my wonderful fur-babies!
4. A great Ac2E Family.
5. The best students.

Translating Expressions

This week we worked with Translating Expressions and Inequalities. Students worked in groups rolling 4 dice to create expressions. After the expression was created, they translated the expression into words. This group activity helped to wrap up our Translating Expressions lesson.

 

 

 

"Let's Coast It" Seminar

On the 2 days before Thanksgiving break, Ac2E Middle School students will be attending 2 Seminars of their choosing on a multitude of topics. The seminar I have chosen to present is a neat photo transfer technique that I found on Pinterest, that I thought would be a great idea for the kids to re-do as presents for family and friends. They will be transferring a picture of their choosing onto a plain 4x4 tile from Home Depot ($0.13). Here is a quick step by step on what the kids will be doing.

Step 1: Pick a picture of your choosing and size it down to 4x4 inches. If it has words, make sure you make it a mirror image, so that the words are not backwards on the final product. Print out on a laser printer.

Step 2: Dip a brush into the holy grail that is Mod Podge, gotta love this stuff. and brush a thin even layer on the ceramic tile.

Step 3: Lay the picture face down onto the tile with Mod Podge. 

Step 4: Take a straight edge ( I used an old gift card) to smooth out any air bubbles/excess Mod Podge. 

Step 5: Let tiles dry overnight...(aint nobody got time for that!) or bake in the oven at 170 for 15 minutes.

Step 6: Take a sponge or your handy dandy fingers, and a spray bottle and get ready for the fun part. Spray a generous amount of water directly onto the paper picture until the picture starts to become visible. Using either your fingers or the sponge, start to rub gently until all the paper has been dissolved, and viola! your picture is left!

Step 7: Spray a sealant to make it shiny and permanent. Enjoy! 

Extra Credit Opp #5

Factor: 36a^3b^4-20a^2b^3-8ab^2

Extra Credit Opp #4

Factor:
4x^2y-24xy+36y

Extra Credit Opp #3

Factor:
2wx+10w+7x+35

Give me the Credit!

Opportunity #2 for 10 extra points on six weeks test!

In an Algebra state of Nirvana!

Nothing better than some algebra humor to kick start the week! :) This week we will continue with Factoring Polynomials!

 

Coming up: Operations with Polynomials!

This week in Algebra we will be focusing on operations with Polynomials & Factoring!

 First student to bring me the answer gets 10 extra points on their Algebra Six Weeks Exam! Ready, Set, Go!

National Principal Appreciation Month

A school is only as successful as its leader wants it to be. Ac2E Middle is so young in its history that a good leader was/is a crucial component that will determine how much it will thrive. Needless to say, our principal, Mrs. Gina Gonzalez, is the ideal principal for our school. Her enthusiasm and vision for our school is contagious to teachers and students alike. My homeroom, Princeton, decided to make Mrs. Gonzalez a few tokens of appreciation.

Making Algebra Fun! :)

While investing many hours digesting teacher blogs looking for ideas for my own classroom and teaching style, I came across the most amazing free software to create math puzzles! I decided to play with it and put it to use yesterday. My students LOVED it! Cant wait to use it again! The topic was Simplifying Algebraic Expressions.

Ac2E Middle School Ribbon Cutting Ceremony!

Ac2E Middle school administration, staff, and Student Council officers will be hosting the ribbon cutting ceremony for our new "home" on Thursday, October 9, 2014. This will be a
 a milestone in our school history!
 Guests in attendance will be given a tour of our facilities by our student leaders. It is the perfect opportunity  for these young ladies and gentlemen to showcase hidden leadership skills, as well as the pride they have for their school!

Pictured below are Mrs. Gina Gonzalez (Principal), our student council officers and 8th grade representatives, and Mrs. Priscilla Garcia (Student Council advisor)

Direct Variation in Math & Life

What comes to mind when you hear the words direct variation? The analytical part of your brain is probably thinking something along the lines of a change that directly affects the end result, and you'd be right.
In math terms, direct variation is when the changes to our dear friend "y" are completely in the hands of our faithful "x". The better name for these "hands" is the constant of variation. So basically 'y' changes as 'x' changes, making 'y' dependent and 'x' independent.

Now let's think in broader, more "lifely" terms. What are some real life examples of direct variation in our daily lives?

How bout the amount of your allowance directly varies with how many A's appear on your report Card?

This week we will be exploring relationships within direct variation, and explore more ways that support the theory that direct variation is what drives people to succeed.

Think about that as we explore this mathematical concept.

Six Weeks Exams

This week students will be taking their first six weeks exams. Content has been taught, practiced, enriched, and explored; now it's time to put it to the test! Remember, in order for your Grade to reflect your true effort and knowledge, you must give it your all. Make sure to study your interactive journals and get all late work turned in before the deadline, Friday, October 3, 2014 in order to receive credit. I believe in you and so should you!

Student Council Officer Elected!

The votes are in! Student council officers for the 2014-2015 school year have been elected! & I'm proud to say that the class president and treasurer were both elected from our very own Princeton!  Great way to represent boys!

Shout out for Princeton!

A big pat on the back goes to my AWESOME homeroom, Princeton! They worked together as a true team and helped each other out to have 100% of their blogs set up! I'm very proud of them. :)

Our New BFF: Ti-Nspire!

Today we were finally able to get our hands on our new gadgets, the Ti-Nspire calculators!

According to the state of Texas, all 8th grade math students will now be able to use a graphing calculator during the school year and to take the Math STAAR. While we wait for ours to arrive, we borrowed a class set from our awesome colleagues at Rio High. :) Needless to say, the kids were ecstatic!! Here are a few snapshots of them getting their feet wet using them to work out some basic integer operations.

 

Of course, we also added an entry into our interactive notebook with a skeleton of our new device and some keystroke shortcuts for the students to use as reference as they become more familiar with it. But who are we kidding, they will probably learn it faster than us adults, their technology skills amaze me daily!

Ac2E's Meet the Teacher!

It's that time again students! September 9, 2014 from 2-5 pm

Time to bring in your parents to meet your AMAZING teachers! :-) Time to put a face to the name that you just cant stop bragging about ;)

Parents, this is a great opportunity to swap contact information so we can keep you posted on all that is happening at Ac2E! Email, Remind, Text, or a traditional phone call, you tell us what you prefer, and we will make sure to communicate with you about all that involves Ac2E and your child!

M&M's Equivalency

Week of September 1-5, 2014

This week we have been reviewing topics previously learned in 7th grade. We discussed the procedures to find equivalent forms of fractions, decimals and percents. The students were then given an activity where they had to find the ratios of a certain color of M&M's to the total found in their bag. They were instructed to take the ratios and find equivalent fractions, decimals and percents for each color. It was a good review activity and the kids received an added treat at the end. The activity was glued to their interactive notebooks alongside the notes we took.