The morning was energized by a visit from Illstyle and Peace Productions breaking performance which was well received by students. Then our math lesson started with a review of the criteria that leads to successful learning and many stories about "when you know where you want to go and you know how to get there, but the actual journey takes time." Students shared stories of their efforts related to rock climbing, coding, skating, hockey and more.
After that it was clear that they needed some space to choose their learning for the rest of the period. Therefore I posted a math menu of choices with the last choice being "do you have another idea," and students made choices.
The room turned into the kind of math workshop I always hope for. In a couple corners of the room students were crafting metric number lines. In other corners students were completing Khan Academy exercises, and many more were making place value movies with SCRATCH and iMovie. I helped a boy create a Math Rap website to host the wonderful raps he writes about math.
No one could believe it when lunch arrived because everyone was engaged. It was just the way I like it!
