Congratulations to our new bloggers!  They are halfway through!  This week, I get to blog about 10 more new bloggers.  I even had time to write my comments about them.  I’m so sorry to my last week bloggers as I was an overstressed zombie and did not get to write reflections.  I am seriously in awe over how great these bloggers are and can’t wait to see all of the new material they create!

I was also assigned a blogger who stopped blogging and even deleted their blog altogether because of negative comments after Week 1 of the Initiation.  I am not sure who this is yet as I started my first week of school and did not get to read all 130 new blogs.  However, I am truly sorry that you had a negative experience.  Please know that we have all had negative comments and experiences, it is a part of social media.  But, it does not have to define us.  And, when you persevere, you will see that the many good comments and benefits will outweigh the bad.

Nutter Buttersmith @reminoodle has a blog named **The MathSmith**.

The second post for the Blogging Initiation is titled **Review Games by Students for Students“** and the author sums it up as follows: **I shared my review game project that I use to have students conduct their own exam review with games they create and implement. I included my description for the students, my rubric, my reflection piece, and some pictures of review games students have created.** A memorable quotation from the post is: **As exam review each semester (and this year, each trimester), I gave students a group project worth 100 points to come up with review games for each chapter that will be on the exam.**

My comments:
Remi is an amazing person who I adore for many reasons but especially because she crochets!  She has given me many great ideas this summer on her blog.  I love that she included such detailed instructions and all of her files in this post.  It makes the activity effortless to implement!  Also, she is posting a ton of blogs right now and will be around for the long run.  This is a site that you don’t want to miss!

Mr. Carby @NateilCarby has a blog named **Change over Time**.

The second post for the Blogging Initiation is titled **All Student Teachers Should Learn SST Procedure“** and the author sums it up as follows: **Most teachers assume other teachers know about the SST process. Most don’t. And the ones that do, don’t do it EFFECTIVELY. ** A memorable quotation from the post is: **If our job is to put students first, we need to consistent with that even if it means more paperwork in the process.**

Thank you Mr. Carby for bringing to light such an important issue!  Most teachers are not trained to handle these special needs our students have, especially if they do not have an IEP.  Being a student teacher can be daunting, especially if you do not know that you can get support from something like SST.

Lauren has a blog named **From a Math Class**.

The second post for the Blogging Initiation is titled **They Don’t Teach You That In School“** and the author sums it up as follows: **This post is about a first-year struggle with paper traffic. The system I developed for filing and staying organized is highly ineffective and causing me to lose my mind.** A memorable quotation from the post is: **It’s like trying to power my house with a potato.**

I love this post because I feel your pain Lauren!  In fact, you have inspired me to make “Organization” the Middle School Sunday Funday blogging topic after review games!  And I agree that there were so many things they didn’t teach us in “teacher school” that we really needed!

Kevin Krenz @kevin_krenz has a blog named **Rational Limits**.

The second post for the Blogging Initiation is titled **[NBI] Modeling Temperatures with GeoGebra“** and the author sums it up as follows: **One of my better lessons from my first year of teaching was having students model monthly temperatures in GeoGebra. Students had to struggle to interpret the different parts of their equations within the context. It helped trig become more concrete for them and gave me a more accurate measure of their growth. Next year I’m going to start the unit with this activity.** A memorable quotation from the post is: **The more that I grow as a teacher, the more I believe in teaching modeling with mathematics.**

Wow.  This blog is a must read.  Kevin is using Geogebra and Google Documents with his students for a fantastic modeling lesson.  Also, he has embedded every document he used into his blog with Scibd.  Don’t be fooled, this is no “baby blogger”.  Kevin is hi-tech and knows what he is doing.  Also, my favorite part of the entire post was his “next time” analysis.  You are spot on Kevin.  As I am always telling math candidates that I interview or watch teach, always start with the real world example.  It’s the hook, and students will love it!

Valerie Higgins @Valerie1121 has a blog named **Crafty Math**.

The second post for the Blogging Initiation is titled **Olympic proportions“** and the author sums it up as follows: **This exercise is an interesting review of proportions following the Olympics. It was slightly head-scratching–it wasn’t immediately obvious to students how to figure it out–but the logic behind it was automatically intriguing enough to provide a desire to figure out the true answer.** A memorable quotation from the post is: **And I thought to myself, “Self, this would be a fun exercise for the kiddos!”**

I love how Valerie showed us how Twitter gave her a terrific idea for her math class!  This is a great activity that she used to review proportions for the ACT, however as a middle school math teacher I am going to use this as a proportion lesson!  Thank you for bringing math to life Valerie and making it so interesting!

Jonathan Newman has a blog named **Hilbert’s Hotel**.

The second post for the Blogging Initiation is titled **An Assignment of Which I am (was) Proud“** and the author sums it up as follows: **I used to be a middle school teacher, but my classroom management was horrendous. I tried so many different things, and because the students knew I didn’t start the year being strict, they ate me up alive and nothing worked. However when we did this activity, the students were so silent, you could hear a pin drop. We played Coordinate Battleship!** A memorable quotation from the post is: **Most things about middle school I don’t miss, but getting to capture their attention through a silly little game where they are learning mathematics and don’t even know it is one of the little things that I do miss. **

Jonathan blogs about Coordinate Battleship in a way that I have never played it with my class!  He has the whole class play together.  I thought that this was fascinating and especially loved how he had them say “Parenthesis, three, comma, negative four, parenthesis”.  In middle school they often forget the parenthesis when they first start writing the coordinates.  When I have the students play Battleship, they do so in partners.  However, some partners mess up but it is hard to catch with so many games going on at the same time.  This ensures the entire class is learning it correctly.  Also, I love the “Torpedo” tie in at the end and wonder if my students will realize what a slope of 0 will do! 

Bruce Ferrington @BruceFerrington has a blog named **Authentic Inquiry Maths**.

The second post for the Blogging Initiation is titled **My Name is 6 x 7“** and the author sums it up as follows: **We used labels on all the kids to help practice and remember some of those harder multiplication facts. Children spoke to their friends as “49” and “56” – they really got into the swing of things and hopefully some of these times tables facts will be retained!** A memorable quotation from the post is: **For the day, all kids in Year 4 were given a sticky label with a multiplication fact written on it – this became their new name for the day.**

Bruce knocked it out of the park with this lesson.  What a great way to make memorization stick!  I teach 6th grade and they have such a tough time with their 12’s.  I am going to do this on Tuesday (and maybe all week!)  Thank you Bruce for such a fun lesson!

Matt Owen @_MattOwen_ has a blog named **Just Tell Me the Answer**.

The second post for the Blogging Initiation is titled **I Love My Google Site!“** and the author sums it up as follows: **I’m pretty darn proud of my class website. I’ve put a lot of work into it, and I kinda want to show it off! I also just want to put it out there so I can get feedback.** A memorable quotation from the post is: **My website is really the vehicle that is allowing me to make a run at standards based grading and a flipped class model.**

I knew I would love this blog with I saw the Rick Astley reference and proceeded to get “Rick-rolled”.  LOVE.  I am with you Matt, I am really proud of your Google Site!  This is something that I have always been interested in doing, and after reading Matt’s post, I may have to actually try it!  His Google Site looks amazing and I love how he is using the Google Forms as well!

Rachel Rosales @rachelrosales has a blog named **PurpleProntoPups**.

The second post for the Blogging Initiation is titled **Something to be proud of“** and the author sums it up as follows: **This is a RAFT (role, audience, format, topic) for systems of equations. It allows students to have some choice in their final product, while demonstrating knowledge of the “big picture” of systems of equations.** A memorable quotation from the post is: **Since a lot most almost everything I use has been stolen from somewhere, this was actually a difficult prompt to respond to.**

Rachel posted a RAFT on Systems of Equations and asks for our help in helping her improve it.  I am especially proud of Rachel for this blog post.  One of the most difficult things to do as new bloggers is to open up our lessons for critical viewing.  But, it is also one of the most helpful!  Please visit this site and help Rachel make a great project based lesson on Systems of Equations even better!

Update: Posts featuring all the others bloggers participating in the second week of the Math Blogging Initiation:

Julie, Fawn, Anne, Megan, Bowman, Sam, Lisa, John, @druinok, Tina, Kate, Sue