Monday, August 11, 2014

Welcome to 2014!

Welcome to our class!  

I know we're going to have a great year together.


Welcome to another year of math!  I hope this year will be a wonderful learning experience for you, and I've accepted the challenge of making it the best year ever for all of us!

I hope you realize that teachers don't actually have 3 months off during the summer, and I spent a LOT of time doing some great learning by reading, attending conferences, and reflecting.  (I think people who love teaching are the ones who love learning!) Thanks to a great idea in a book called Teach Like a Pirate, I decided on 5 words that I hope will describe our class this year:
I want our class to feel safe, inspiring, and challenging.  During our class, I hope you will feel accomplished and experience the joy in learning.  


Yes, the pencils say Mathmagical and Growth Mindset! 

The purpose of this post is for brief introductions, so a bit more about me...this summer, I spent a lot of time with my family--here, in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and in Colorado. I also spent time with friends, where we tried new restaurants, talked school stuff, and went to movies.  (I finally saw Frozen, and it was my first digital 3D movie, which I loved!)  I'm a cat person, I'm a mountain person, and I love reading and buying new school supplies.  According to some around LHHS, I  coined the phrase mathmagical, and in honor of the new word, I have a whole box of new pencils waiting to give away to students who show something mathmagical or those who exhibit a growth mindset. (You have heard about growth mindset, right??) My other job at school is I am one of two campus "Instructional Specialists," so I did a lot of planning and work for presentations in August. 





Arches National Park--Look at that great parabola!

For your first post, please briefly introduce yourself.  You may share something from your Mathography, or you may include something new. You only need to write a sentence or two...just please write something that will help us know you a bit better. Please look over the blog rules page before commenting.

My examples were too long, and don't feel obligated to write that much, but I'll be happy with all of your posts.








I look forward to getting to know you, and I'm so excited about the new year!  
Get used to hearing about #growthmindset!
Thank you for your comments!  

(By the way, I moderate the comments, so they do not appear until I post them.  Sorry for any confusion!)











Mathmagically yours
Ms. Laster