Resources

During the 2011-2012 school year, I was a part of an Algebra I/Algebra II Cadre for special education teachers presented by our area special education cooperative extension.  During one of the workshops, the presenter gave us an activity to do on a makeshift coordinate plane created from a large sheet of peg board. He had it sitting on an easel and used yarn and golf tees for the activity.  My colleague and I were so struck by the idea of using a peg board for graphing, when the training was over, we made a beeline for the hardware store and bought our own.  Thinking to make smaller, individual size boards, we asked the service man to cut the large sheet down into 16 different squares.  During the summer, I brought those boards home to upstate NY with me and my father helped me turn my idea(s) for the boards into reality.

I would love some ideas for using these boards.  Right now, I just use them as a tool for teaching/reinforcing how to graph.  The beauty of the Cadre instructor's larger board that is relatively lost on these smaller ones is that he was able to really illustrate the concept of slope. Please send me your thoughts!

 

 

 

Two years ago I taught a resource geometry class.  At the end of the year, another special education teacher and I combined our two classes and did several joint math lessons on volume and surface area.  It was wildly successful and tons of fun.  At the end, we agreed to allow the students to have a "Circle and Sphere" party (aka- pizza and cake).  One of my students made a cake and brought it in for all of us to share.  I hated to cut into it.  It was absolutely beautiful.  Before class, I had to take it around to everyone and show them how talented my kiddo was.