MathyCathy's Blog – Mrs. Cathy Yenca

Yes, friends, the summer is moving by oh so quickly!  I always say after the fourth of July, the rest of the summer becomes a fast-forward blur.  Nonetheless, I find myself getting antsy about the upcoming school year.  My brain is shifting from restful mush to inspired reality – in weeks, I will meet a new generation of 8th graders.  My next batch of students.  This excites me.  Call me crazy, but I am one of the ones who gets giddy when I see back-to-school supplies filling the aisles of office supply stores.

Just today, I sit down for a relaxing session of Pinterest-surfing.  Somehow, I end up with 27 windows open simultaneously on my computer, each one stemming from the next – a chain reaction of finds that I know I can somehow use in my classroom.

Here are some “pins” I hope to use this year!

1.  Tagxedo.com

How cool is this?  I am familiar with the Wordle of old, but Tagxedo offers a level of control I haven’t experienced with Wordle.  Yes, these word clouds look cool, but I plan to create word banks to inspire students to write and explain mathematics this year.  Kids have a hard time explaining their thinking, but with a word bank to help equip them, I think the quality of their explanations will improve.  Funky-looking word banks with tools like Tagxedo can’t hurt the process.

2. iPad Inspiration

This presentation offers over 100 ways to implement iPads in the classroom, as well as some troubleshooting tips.  With an impending 1-to-1 initiative, I know this will be a helpful resource for me.  I hope to blog about my iPad experiences a lot this year.  So excited to have such a motivating and cutting-edge resource at my fingertips… literally!

3. Curiosity and the Unexpected

I like to keep kids guessing, and this idea for rewards fits the bill!  Homemade scratch-off lottery tickets?!?  I better get busy making these now!

As far as blogging, I have been M.I.A. since Pi Day!  Here are some stats that may clarify my absence:

1,662 – the number of miles we drove from Allentown to Austin

100 – an under-estimate for the number of Austin homes shown to us by our most gracious realtor

55 – the number of nights we stayed in a hotel suite before closing on a house

15 – the number of days we have been unpacking and settling in to our new house!

144 – the number of awesome 8th graders I teach at Hill Country Middle School

2 – the number of preps I have! (those still teaching in Bethlehem will understand just how amazing this statistic is!)

1/2 – the portion of a John Lemon “Hey Cupcake!” I can consume on SoCo

1/1,000,000 – these opportunities for our family here in Austin, TX!

It has been a non-stop state of busy-body-ness (coining the term in case it doesn’t exist) since we decided to make this move, but I can see sunny days at the pool, Zilker Park, and Barton Springs on the horizon!  And if you are wondering, all of those rumors about Austin traffic are true.  😉

Today was a very bittersweet day at Nitschmann Middle School in Bethlehem, PA. “Pi Day and Good-Bye Day” was a celebration I will never forget. I presented each student with a Happy Pi Day greeting card to review the history of pi. Here’s the link: Happy Pi Day Greeting Card  I also found some neat  pi pencils and gave one to each student.  We began the festivities by watching a few videos and listening to pi songs.  I challenged students to recite pi from memory!  My best competitor memorized 18 digits, but I reigned supreme by reciting 51!  We also enjoyed my favorite pi search engine (found here) where students’ birth dates can be entered as a string of digits, and the pi search page tells how many digits into pi the string of numbers occurs consecutively… an annual hit with middle schoolers!

Today was also my last day teaching at Nitschmann Middle School before our family makes our way to a new life and new schools in Austin, Texas. I was humbled and amazed at the outpouring of thanks and appreciation I received from my 160+ students. Cards, gifts, tasty homemade pies and pi cupcakes, student speeches, and even a song written and performed by a student warmed my heart in ways I will never forget! Here are some more class pictures from our day!  Thank you Nitschmann!