Well, I've obviously decided not to do a "Big March" song this year. Instead, I brought back another song from my repertoire, namely my "When the Saints Go Marchin' In" parody for Mardi Gras.
Of course, I originally wrote this song six years ago back at the old charter school, where I was asked to teach science in addition to math -- so my parody was "When the Scientists Go Marchin' In." Now that I'm no longer teaching science, there's no need to mention scientists in today's version.
Perhaps I should have replaced "scientists" with "mathematicians" -- referring to professionals who study either math or science. But it was already pushing it to replace the monosyllabic word "saints" in the original version to the three-syllable word "scientists" -- there's no way that the five-syllable word "mathematicians" was going to fit. So instead I choose "math people" (shades of the late John Berray).
The original "Saints" song contains the line "Oh how I want to be in that number." The word "number" fits with a math song, so I decide to retain it here. The other verses refer to the current Math I topic (systems of equations) and the current Math III topic (polynomials). This is something I did in my science parody as well -- include different verses for different classes. But I haven't done that much this year -- write songs with Math I and Math III verses. Today I perform the chorus in the key of D major and the verses in the key of A major.
The fact that today is both Mardi Gras and the first day of the Big March reminds us of the Andrew Usher Calendar. On that calendar, Easter is always between April 5th-11th and Presidents' Day between February 16th-22nd, so in any Gregorian year that matches these dates, Mardi Gras will be the day after Presidents' Day. Easter is on April 9th this year, which is in the Usher range.
Since Mardi Gras is such a big party day, sometimes I wonder whether this should become a four-day weekend on the Usher Calendar, so that the Big March begins on the same day as Lent. But then some might point out that people should spend Ash Wednesday in church, not school. And then it would be a short jump to just taking the entire week off, a Ski Week.
Today in my Math I classes, we begin Chapter 6.1.1 of the CPM text. There is a Desmos activity associated with this lesson -- the students must read a word problem, convert it to equations, graph the equations, and identify the solution. As it turns out, the word problems refer to scenarios mentioned in previous chapters.
For example, the first problem brings back our old typist friends Clara and Tabias. I already wrote a song based on this old problem -- "WPM" (written in 10EDL). So I briefly sing this song -- especially the second verse, starring both Clara and Tabias -- once again today. (So that's all the less reason to sing "The Big March" today, with two tunes already featured.)
The second problem refers to two bicyclists competing in the Big Race. No, I didn't write a "Big Race" song back in that chapter (unless we change "Big March" to "Big Race" -- but unfortunately, the ants weren't racing in the original song of which "Big March" is a parody).
The last problem is about two phone plans -- one costing a flat $25 (per month), the other costing $10 plus five cents per minute of long distance calls. This sort of question ties back to my underlying theme of this chapter -- solving systems to help make financial decisions.
Today is Sixday on the Eleven Calendar:
Resolution #6: We implement all parts of our assignments.
The students work on several different things today -- starting with test corrections from the Chapter 5 Test that the kids took last week. They must work on their Desmos activities for the main lesson, as well as prepare for the Chapter 5 notebook check on Friday (since I neglected to collect the notebooks on the day of the test).
Second period Math I is slightly better behaved today than last Friday. Still, two objects are thrown in the classroom, resulting in a pair of extra questions on the homework. I begin to complain that they shouldn't throw things in class, especially with the WASC visit looming -- the evaluators won't want to see objects being thrown in class. But my complaints contain the seeds of an argument -- and the WASC evaluators won't want to see an argument break out in class either.
So I'm forced to stop myself from arguing. Adding questions to the HW (or sending out individual throwers if they're caught to the office) is the best I can do in this situation without argument.
Fourth period, of course, doesn't have the misbehavior of second period. Still, I mess up when I open the test corrections on DeltaMath but fail to unlock the original test, meaning that two absent students from Wednesday are unable to take the test.
Since I mention the Math III lesson in the song, I might as well bring it up here as well. Today the students are learning polynomial division -- and we've been asked to teach neither the long division nor synthetic division methods. Instead, we teach them the box method, which is often used to multiply polynomials (especially when they're aren't both binomials), but in reverse for division.
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