This week’s theme is Favorite Resources.   It’s not too late!  Submit you post for this week.  Next week, we will be focusing on our favorite problems.

• Beth, Favorite Resources
• MaryAnn Moore, @missnarymm, Favorite Resources
• Kristin, #kristinabc123, MAP/Dan Meyer – My Favorite Resources – MS Sunday Funday
• Megan Hayes-Golding, @mgolding, Why Teachers Pay Teachers Irks Me
• Alisan Royster, @G8rAli, Want a good discussion? Ask a good question. 
• Mary Dooms, @mary_dooms, A list of go-to resources
• Denise Gaskins, Internet Math Resources
• Denise Gaskins, The (Mathematical) Trouble with Pizza

This week’s theme is One Good Thing.   It’s not too late!  Submit you post for this week. 

• Lisa Soltani, @lisasolt, Organizing Lessons
• Tara Maynard, @tmaynard5, Talking Math in Week 2!
• Matt Coaty, mcoaty, Student Feedback Tools
• Jennifer Fairbanks, @hhsmath, 8ismyluckynumber
• Elizabeth, Something Good to Share
• Julie Reulbach, @jreulbach, Four Fours Problem/Puzzler
• Beth, So many good things!
• Robin Nehla, @Radical_Robin, One Good Thing-Circle Trackers
• Amy Wix, @awix22, Best thing to happen this week
• Dawn DuPriest, @DuPriestMath, One Good Thing in the Midst of Disaster

This week’s theme is Lesson Organization.   It’s not too late!  Submit you post for this week. 

My lesson plan organization needs help!  Many years ago, I kept all of my lessons in a giant 3-ring binder.  But, I couldn’t keep up with it, and I really hate all of that hole punching.  I then kept a file folder for each lesson, but that was too many file folders.  Now, I keep everything from one chapter / unit in one file folder, but it’s all jumbled up.  I’m always looking for a certain sheet to make copies of or a homework key.  I would love to have it all in order in this file folder.  Is this possible?  Basically, I would love to have a better system, but it needs to be low maintenance.  Please help if you have a great idea!  Blog about your awesome system or just throw some help in the comments.  THANK YOU in advance!  And thanks to Beth and Mary for blogging this week.

• Beth, MSSunFun Lesson Planning
• Beth, MTBoS Help with Systems Unit
• Mary Dooms, @mary_dooms, What to do when you don’t know what to do

This week’s theme is First Day / First Week for 2013-2014.  It’s not too late!  Submit you post for this week.  Next week we will blog about lesson organization to help get ourselves reorganized from the beginning of the school year.

• Mary Dooms, @mary_dooms, TGIF
• Kate Fisher, @_k8fisher, Day One
• Justin Aion, @justinaion, Relearning to Teach
• Alisan Royster, @g8rali, Is math class always going to be this fun? – First Day Quote
• Julie Reulbach, @jreulbach, First Week! Factor Craze and Pascal’s Triangle
• Stephanie Reilly, @reilly1041, Life of Mrs. Reilly
• Cathy Yenca, @mathycathy, First Days Favorites
• Beth, Week 1 Reflection
• Heather Kohn, @heather_kohn, First Day Activities
• Elizabeth, My First Week Back 
• Nikki, Things to KNow
• Tara Maynard, @tmaynard5, First Week Jitters
• Mrs. Fisher, @ejtf25, School of Fisher
• MaryAnn Moore, @missnarymm, First Week: Tiling Pools and Notebooking
• Kristin, First week…a couple of activities…really fun Bingo!
• Paula White, @paulawhite, First Day Plans
• J Lingley, @jmrlingley, What I am doing my (Fifth) First Day Back
• Sherrie Nackel, @luvbcd, First Day of School
• Tara Maynard, @tmaynard5, Opening week activity – Google doodle
• Sam Shah, First Day

I had an exhausting but amazing first week!  We set up math graph books in both classes, boring but necessary.  This introduced 6th grade to foldables and garnered the comment, “We sure use a lot of glue in this class.”  Hahaha.  Not THAT much glue!

This week in…

6th grade – We reviewed place value, fraction to decimal conversion, rounding, and rulers! I always have several 6th graders who write that 32/4 = 0.125 and my, “Estimate before you evaluate.” talk ensues, full of cookie examples.  But, my first lesson in 6th grade is to introduce them to patterns, and I do this with the “Math in Nature” YouTube video followed by an almost blank Pascal’s Triangle.  I just tell them, “There are a ton of patterns in here, can you figure them out?” and off they go!  At the end we color the odd and even numbers different colors and I show them the large colored interactive Pascal Triangle online.  This is a huge hit with 6th grade students and I even had 5 students request larger blank grids. They are bringing them back to me next week so I can hang them on my bulletin board.  Did I mention how much I adore 6th graders??

7th grade was too exciting for words.  I am focusing on “Notice and Wonder“, and problem solving with them.  Everyday I hear kids say, “Whoa, mind blown!”.  It’s pretty electric in there and I only have problem solving to thank!  I took pictures last week but next time, I’m getting video clips.  I cannot believe how much they have taken to the problem solving and how excited they are about it!  After completing the Sieve Of Eratosthenes the first problem was “Factor Craze“.  Thanks so much to Fawn for blogging about this great problem!  I’m going to blog about just this problem when I have more time!  It was a wonderful beginning of the year problem for 7th graders who are working on prime factorization and exponents.  I told them they could try to find the rest of the patterns together and many groups of students emailed and googled chatted about it that night.  Who can ask for more than kids chatting at night about math?  Later that week we talked about number systems and I got to entertain them with Vi Hart’s video.  They were mesmerized!  And, they have blown my mind with their energy and enthusiasm so far!  I’m counting on problem solving to keep puberty apathy at bay this year!

Click here to submit your MS Sunday Funday post!

Teachers have been working hard getting ready for their students these past weeks.  Check out all of our amazing math classroom decor!  Next week, blogs will be about First Day / First Week.  The blogs will be about our first day/week plans or reflections on how the first days went!

• Kimberly Howard, @kim_multitasker, Classroom Tour 2013
• Matt Coaty, mcoaty, Math Classroom Setup
• Courtney Steketee, @CSteketee21, Classroom Pictures
• Kellie Milleson , @MsMilleson32, My Classroom: Where Science & Math Meet!
• Julie Reulbach, @jreulbach, My Room
• Beth, Setting up my room
• Elizabeth, Polka Dot Heaven 
• Dawn DuPriest, @DuPriestMath, Ooh! Guess What!
• Mary Dooms, @mary_dooms, Day zero: Getting the room ready
• Sarah, @Alwildadaughter, Room Decor
• Paul Raymond Collins, @mrprcollins, F13 My New Classroom
• Rachel Whitney, @rachelwhitney21, Exploring the Classroom
• Tara Maynard, @tmaynard5, Our space – What does it look like?
• Amy WIx, awix22, Tour of Room 610

This week’s theme is goals for 2013-2014.  It’s not too late!  Submit you post for this week.

• Amy Zimmer, zimmerdiamonds, A Beautiful 2013-2014
• Mary Dooms, @mary_dooms, SMART goal—raising students’ self-efficacy
• Amy Wix, @awix22, Writing it down makes it so much more official!
• Tara Maynard, @tmaynard5, The start of 13-14
• Beth, Goals!
• Julie Reulbach, @jreulbach, 7th Grade – Problem Solving Goal 2013-2014
• Elizabeth, MS Mat Sunday Funday- Goals
• Chris, A New School Year
• Adrienne Shlagbaum, @shlagteach, Laying the Foundation for 2013-2014
• MaryAnn Moore, @missnarymm, Goals for 2013-2014 School Year
• Robin Nehila, Radical_Robin, 2013-2014 Goals
• Jacob Lingley, @jmrlingley, Math + Art Goals for 2013-2014
• Michael Fenton, mjfenton, Goals for 2013-2014
• Kristin Elix, @mathchica, Goals for 2013-2014
• Sherrie Nackel, @luvbcd, Goals for 2013-2014
• Todd Hawk, @landofmath2, Land of math
• Artur Duque, @mister_duque, New Year’s Resolutions
• Dawn DuPriest, @DuPriestMath, Welcome to 2013-2014!