Insert Clever Math Pun Here

Back again for Stars of the Week! I even made a badge you can grab to put on your blog if you’ve been featured!

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First off, an apology. In my recent binge-watching post I recommended The Paradise before I finished the second season. Do yourself a favor and stop after the first season. I’d replace that recommendation with Stargate Universe (amazon, hulu) because it is good and you are good and good things should be together.

Now onto my starred posts!

I may be a bit biased, but my favorite new website of the week is Julie’s creation of AlgebraTeen! I’ll share some of the tweets that started it at the bottom of this post, but basically we want to create articles like you might see in Seventeen magazine, but with math. Be sure to read all about its creation and submit your own story idea!

I may also be biased about Heather’s Desmos Professional Development post. I wish I would have had it when I gave some PD in June! (I did learn not to start with awesome Desmos art or else they will become obsessed with it.)

[Side note: The reason I’m biased about the Desmos post is that I found out this week that I won the Desmos Lottery and will be part of their first fellowship cohort! {Funny side note: In this post from last year, I actually wrote, “Now I just need to figure out how I can get a job going around to schools and playing desmos bingo with teachers.” I’m not there yet, but closer! I feel like Chris Pratt predicting he’ll be in Jurassic Park 4!}]

Have you seen Sarah’s collection of Japanese logic puzzles, complete with semi-translations? I’m definitely going to be printing some of these off for 3 days of professional development meetings my own entertainment. I think it would also be great to have a stack of them for kids to pick up after a test.

I still can’t believe Sara VanDerWerf held out on blogging as long as she did when she has so much to say. Be sure to read her moving post on how to deal with the grief of others.

Heather also has a great post about reminding us we teach people.

I love Dave Sabol’s idea of spreading Which One Doesn’t Belong to outside the math classroom! Such an easy thing to implement!

I love it when Elissa reads a book: she gives such detailed notes that I feel like I don’t even have to read it. With Mathematical Mindsets, she even gave a nice summary of actions to take, and many of them are listed under the “easy to implement” column. Pick a few to try this year!

Beth may have retired at the end of the school year, but she has definitely not turned off her teaching brain! Check out her virtual filing cabinets and her five tips for teachers!

Jennifer also provided 5 great tips to read, especially for newbies!

Sarah came up with a genius idea on how to get students talking about awkward group work situations: make them give advice! (I would also love for her to make her students’ responses into an article for AlgebraTeen!)

Speaking of groups, Bonnie has a nice method of making sure all students participate during card sorts.

These chocolate peanut butter snack bars from Sally’s Baking Addiction look super delish. Maybe I’ll try to substitute them for my daily granola bar!

No, this wasn’t from last week but I just relistened to Pam’s video voice-over of her TMC16 talk about self-reflection to get myself geared up for the school year. Hers was one of the sessions I was most disappointed in missing so I am so grateful that she made this for me us!

And now some of my favorite tweets:

The “points” worked exceptionally well. In NO time kids were referring to planes by three points, not “the wall.” pic.twitter.com/b1cjE1eGGW

— Becca Phillips (@RPhillipsMath) August 5, 2016

@approx_normal @mathymeg07 With you two? We call that a “low five” 😏

— Joel Bezaire (@joelbezaire) August 4, 2016

Happy tears from 1st block bc a S took ownership of their mistake and had the courage to correct it #2ndday #FamiLEE pic.twitter.com/Y4vxYM3S75

— Allyn Davis (@lynlyndavis) August 4, 2016

I made this about 98% as a joke based on that pic from yesterday. But if you want it, it’s yours! {@solvingforx} https://t.co/6JWhOFftN6

— casey (@cmmteach) August 4, 2016

This may be my favorite joke ever:

.@Trianglemancsd Isn’t that just the worst??

— Dan Anderson (@dandersod) August 1, 2016

“Give one/ get one” success strategies. pic.twitter.com/da48Zc6wiL

— Becca Phillips (@RPhillipsMath) August 3, 2016

The month of August is just one long Sunday night… #teacherproblems

— TeacherProblems (@Blond_Teacher) August 2, 2016

And some of my favorites from #Alg17:

@mathymeg07 how to get those nagging parent functions off your back

— Lisa Winer (@Lisaqt314) August 5, 2016

@jreulbach @mathymeg07 “How to find the perfect hashtag for any occasion”

— Mattie B (@stoodle) August 5, 2016

@mathymeg07 @jreulbach “13 tips to tell if fractions just aren’t that into you”

— Mattie B (@stoodle) August 5, 2016

And for those of you (like me!) who are starting back to school this week…the struggle is real.  Good luck!!!

This is Rocco. He’s doing his best. 13/10 someone help him (IG: rocco_roni) pic.twitter.com/qFsl1nnXMv

— WeRateDogs™ (@dog_rates) August 2, 2016

@dog_rates pic.twitter.com/ws2s9e5PlP

— destram (@DestramMG) August 2, 2016