8:30 -- First period arrives. This is a Math III class.
In this class we go over the "Ancient Puzzle" -- the intro to logs from the CPM text. My focus here is on the Checking for Understanding part of the lesson. Even though there's already a worksheet based on the CPM text, that page doesn't contain many examples, so I've made up my own. That is what's been lacking from previous lessons -- I just assume that because there's a completed worksheet that I don't need any extra examples.
And I believe that these examples help the students understand what's admittedly a tricky topic. I'm still not sure I give enough, though -- while I do show them more simple logs, I don't go further with solving exponential equations than the three on the worksheet. But with my extra log examples, I'm already ahead of the game compared to my previous lessons.
9:50 -- Today is the anniversary of the day someone dared me to hit the PE. teacher back when I was a young eighth grader -- an incident for which I was suspended. (I mentioned it briefly in last week's COVID What If? worlds -- including some in which it never happens.) Every year I retell the story to one of my classes -- usually third period (the time when I had PE that year). Since I don't have a third period, I tell the story at around the time it happened (just before 10:00).
9:55 -- First period leaves. As I said, this leads to nutrition and third period conference.
During the prep period, I receive an email from the math department chair, who announces that there will be a CT meeting coming up on Friday. So I'll wait to decide whether to jump to Sections 3.2 or 3.3. of the Math I text until after that meeting, when the final exam will presumably be discussed..
11:45 -- Fourth period arrives. This is the first of two Math I classes meeting today.
And the World Cup continues. As I wrote yesterday, there's no way I'm teaching slope of parallel and perpendicular lines on a day when the kids are distracted.
Since I'm waiting until after Friday's meeting to jump to 3.2 or 3.3 (and also to avoid confusing the students when it comes to Friday's quiz) I wish to stay in 3.1 now. So I look around for another Desmos lesson that I can give during the soccer matches, and land on Lesson 3.1.6, Tetris Transformations. And to prepare for the quiz, I have the students glue a DeltaMath review page into the interactive notebook.
Even though Mexico defeats Saudi Arabia 2-1, Poland advances due to goal differential. And I must keep explaining to the students that even if the Saudis hadn't scored that late goal in stoppage time, Mexico still would have been eliminated due to the "fair play" tiebreaker -- El Tri had received too many yellow and red cards, so the Poles still would advance to the knockout round.
Once again, during the soccer matches, I perform no song. (Normally I perform the song I post on Wednesdays in fourth period only that day -- instead I'll start "Sweet Home Algebra" tomorrow.)
1:15 -- Fourth period leaves for lunch.
2:05 -- Sixth period arrives. This is the second of two Math I classes meeting today.
Once again, due to the way our block schedule works on Wednesdays, sixth period is supposed to match yesterday's fourth period lesson, not today's. So I get ready to do the Transformation Golf lesson, including singing the golf song.
But then the Wi-Fi goes out, and so there's no way to access Desmos. Instead, I only pass out the notebook page from fourth period (which I was expecting to give sixth period tomorrow). Yes, that's how my first big Geometry lesson goes in all three Math I classes -- interrupted by a special ed meeting in second period, the World Cup in fourth, and a Wi-Fi blackout in sixth.
3:30 -- Sixth period leaves, thus ending my teaching day.
This also means that the golf song is cursed -- I perform it in sixth, but there's no Desmos golf activity to go with it. In fact, I'm considering going back and editing yesterday's post and changing the lyrics to the Math III song that I should have written in the first place.
I might still rewrite the golf song with a new tune for future math classes -- perhaps I'll now set it to The Simpsons theme song (thus making it a parody), since I've been tying this activity to the Bart Simpson golf episode. Likewise, I could have made today's song a parody of the background music from the video game Tetris. But I don't, since only second period is doing the Tetris activity tomorrow. (Fourth period does it today and doesn't meet tomorrow, while I'll likely finish golf with sixth tomorrow since I'd already posted it to Google Classroom before the Wi-Fi outage.)
Just before Thanksgiving break, a sixth period guy was telling me about future song parodies that he'd like to hear me sing, including "Sweet Home Algebra" (an "Alabama" parody, of course). And so I write this parody as it will fit tomorrow's lesson no matter what I teach (including the line in the chorus about "Geometry too"). On the guitar, it repeats the riff D-C-G throughout the entire song.
I hope sixth period will enjoy this song tomorrow.
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