Kuta Software

Yeah, Kuta Software!
I realized this week that I hadn't mentioned the online worksheet resource I use most for arithmetic and algebra. My colleague and old co-teacher Cristina found it. The site has tons of free worksheets, great for practice and exercise, the kind of thing that I like to use so that I can put my creativity to activity planning rather than writing problems or formatting worksheets for simple practice.
They have also recently added a Geometry section, and if you have a PC, I bet it would be AWESOME to buy their program that helps you design and create your own worksheets.
Check them out!
Happy Friday.

The Learning Network, Teaching with the NYTimes

I was honored to be a part of a meeting with the lovely and tremendous women (both former teachers) who are writing the The Learning Network, the education blog for the New York Times. They "curate" the Times for educational purposes, encouraging readership, literacy and global awareness for anyone who can go online.
We (I, 5 other math teachers, two awesome folks from MfA and the writers of the blog) were there to talk about how they can develop the math education portion of what they do. Apparently the most searched phrase on the entire blog is test prep, and so the remarkable Patrick Honner wrote some. Check out his "quiz" on financial literacy. Give comments if you have feedback.
I also recommend just generally checking out the website. They put up all kinds of cool stuff for teachers and kids, daily lesson plans, comments from kids, cool questions and interactive surveys and stuff. It's a great resource.
I'll keep you posted as we (hopefully) contribute some more mathy stuff too.

The Math Worksheet Site

My coach showed me this website which has good basic resources. For free, you can get blank graphs, number lines, and worksheets on integer arithmetic or telling clock time. You can also subscribe and get access to a whole bunch more stuff that I can't tell you about.
The site is designed for early ed, but I use everything I listed above in my 9th and 10th grade classes as well when kids are struggling with their basics. You can choose (to some extent) what kinds of features you want included in your worksheet. So it's a little DYO but still very simple and straightforward.

By request, Superstar Pictures

Unfortunately, I have found none with the three together in one shot (alas, sitting at different sides of a round table) but here's a little something.
Aren't they beautiful?!

Ben, Sam, Kate

I had the tremendous pleasure on Wednesday night of doing math and eating dinner with some spectacular math educators and true superstars of the math education blogosphere. I feel tremendously lucky to know these people personally, to have done math with them and had their inspiring guidance both live and online.

Ben's most recent post has changed my whole thinking about math this week. Not to mention his amazing NYMC Dinner & Math evenings, which were super sweet and brought us all together Wednesday night.
Kate's presence in my classroom today felt like an honor beyond measure, a dream come true, actually. She's such a rockstar.
Doing math with Sam was like going back to the best parts of all my math classes ever. He is oh so good in person, people. I hope you know. Funny, humble, smart, and with the nicest handwriting.

Oh, and both he and Kate own t-shirts that say "I only twitter with math teachers"
Amazing.

I cavalierly told my mom on the phone this morning that mathematics was an activity, not a body of knowledge. Whether this is entirely true, it seems to me that doing math with other people, especially ones who are kind and generous and sincere in their curiosity, is just about the best thing ever. The play of it, the improvisation and interaction of ideas, is wonderful. Sharing a passion for high school education takes the whole thing off the charts. Thank you Ben, Sam, Kate. You keep my dream alive.