Ms. Bearse's Site

A former student let me know that I should share the story of crumpled paper with my new classes. It’s usually a story that I tell in response to a put down or negative comment, but so far this term the tone has been pretty positive in class. I am telling the story proactively.

Here’s a fresh blank sheet of paper. Everyone starts off life like this, clean, fresh, and unmarked.
In some respects we start each day like this too.

However, we will sometimes encounter people throughout the day who will say mean and hurtful things like “I don’t want _________ to be in our group” or “Did you see what ____________ was wearing” or “You are (a loser/ugly/stupid)”. Each one of these comments will start to crumple your fresh clean paper.

As we go through our day, we can sometimes get quite crumpled!

Some people realize that their words have done some damage, and they try to smooth things out by saying “I was just joking” or “no offense”, but no matter how much you try, it’s impossible to get the paper smooth again.

It’s hard to stick up for yourself when hurtful comments are being made. “You’re hurting my feelings” is not so easy to say. We sometimes find it easier to talk about crumpling paper…”Don’t crumple my paper” or even sticking up for the other people around us by saying “Don’t crumple their paper”. It’s become a bit of a code word in my classes over the years, and I was so happy to know that my former student remembered the story, and asked for it to be passed on to my new classes.

Some of us get anxiety on test days. To help avoid this, we’ve got math rocks to keep in our pocket, or hold in our hand, to calm us down.

We decorated them, and will bring them for our first test on Monday. Study hard grade 9s 🙂

We went on a walk in period D to the lake, and did some math with rocks!

Here is a series of rock piles that show exponents.

Here’s another that shows 1/2 to the power of 2 is 1/4. We left our mark on the shores, and had a fun bonding experience on a lovely day.

To encourage everyone to complete their homework, we’ve got an incentive in place!
If everyone completes their homework for 5 days in a row, there will be snacks!

This week period D has crossed that threshold and enjoyed cake with their math yesterday, and carrots today!

There is a certain amount of pressure now….nobody wants to let the class down! If you need homework help, you can arrange to come in at lunch and I’ll help you out, or you can request a tutor–there are many senior students who tutor and earn volunteer hours. Other options are to work with a study buddy from our class, or to get help from a family member.

Congratulations period D! Hopefully periods B and C can get in the game as well.

Today we used toothpicks to model several patterns. We made equations, and graphed the pattern too!

Many people also enjoyed making their own toothpick pictures.

Every Friday we have a formative quiz to check for comprehension and to encourage studying and consolidation of what we learned during the week.

On Mondays the quizzes are returned, common errors are addressed, and the solutions are posted for reference on the bulletin board at the back of the room.

Having frequent formative feedback can help everyone realize where the comprehension gaps are early on so strategies can be developed to get everyone on the right track by the time the test comes!

Leaves are unfurling and reaching for the sun. Some plants grew 6cm in one day!