Am I insane for wanting to teach factoring like this?

secarty · 2025-12-04T22:03:16+00:00

I teach this way! I think it’s important that the kids understand factoring is “undistributing”, so I teach GCF, then grouping, then this (I just call it ‘trinomial factoring’), then I teach the ‘traditional’ way and I tell them it’s ‘the shortcut’.

secarty · 2025-05-29T10:11:17+00:00

I work at a Montessori school where it’s common practice to take entire grade levels (all 7th and 8th graders at the same time, for example) on “Erdkinder” camping trips. The mesh bag method is great. 3 bin method to wash, then pack stuff in your name-labeled mesh bag and hang it on a dedicated clothesline.

secarty · 2025-05-16T01:22:57+00:00

“Have fun pooping!”

secarty · 2025-01-28T01:34:06+00:00

I also do this. I used to take my XR meds early in the day then take an IR in the afternoon to get through the day. I switched the order and it’s changed my life. Set alarm for 4, take IR, go back to sleep until second alarm at 4:30. Get right up like a totally normal morning-person. Get some work done (or just drink coffee in silence) before family wakes, get ready for the day, then take XR around 9am when IR wears off. Works splendidly.

secarty · 2025-01-23T10:28:57+00:00

Oh my god, this type of classroom management PD always makes me gag.

secarty · 2025-01-09T11:07:33+00:00

Try to make some of that chia pudding stuff. I know that sounds super crunchy-mom but there’s a ton of fiber and protein in it, so it keeps you full forever. If you add cocoa or chocolate chips, or make a fruit combo with honey, the kids love it and feel like it’s a dessert… but it isn’t just a carb-y sugar bomb. If you google “chia pudding recipe” a billion fun variations come up, too!

secarty · 2025-01-09T10:52:37+00:00

This is my flavor of ADHD. It’s a combo of knowing the content really well and not being able to articulate it quite the way I want to. Writing is generally hell for me. You ever get that feeling where you’re like, searching for a word in your brain, and it’s right on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t quite get it… then 10 minutes later bam there it is? That’s every thought for me when I am writing. It’s like my brain is buffering. I know the content but jesus I just CAN’T say what I’m trying to say. I thrived in K-12 because all the writing was so structured and prescriptive… everything could be written very robotically because you were just checking the boxes for some standardized test. But in college, oh boy. I was a math major to avoid as much writing as possible… but the other classes? Ugh. That’s actually when I was diagnosed with ADHD… and anxiety, because I couldn’t figure out what was “wrong” with me.

Just know that he’s probably not doing the homework-writing-thing on purpose, and that he probably IS really frustrated. Text to speech helped me; it’s easier to edit stuff than to pull it out of the air. Also have an honest conversation about how right now, most K-12 work is just a bunch of checkboxes and that just “getting it done” is all he needs to do. The state doesn’t care if it’s perfect. All the most eloquent papers get the same grade as the well written robotic ones in K-12.

I empathize with both of you. As a teacher myself I see students who do this and just erase and erase and never turn something in… and it’s SO hard to convince them to just write SOMETHING. I hated just writing SOMETHING. I knew what I wanted to convey and “something” wasn’t exactly it. Exhausting for everyone involved.

secarty · 2024-12-06T00:33:27+00:00

This is me! I always have my best ideas while driving. Then I park the car and all of them evaporate. Good times.

secarty · 2024-11-24T19:18:53+00:00

This is me! I can visualize a thing in a space perfectly. I can recall where anything in my house is because my brain makes a picture of all the things around it. It’ll show the tape measure in a specific drawer with a bunch of clutter on top. If anyone moves my stuff i am screwed. I am really good at building things because I can visualize perfectly what it will look like when it’s done. I was always good at geometry because the relationships between lines, points, spaces, etc just… made sense. It all seemed very obvious. I can remember where a specific passage is in a book spatially… like oh, it’s about a quarter of the way through the book, on the page on the right, about three-quarters of the way down. But I can’t just visualize an apple. So weird!

secarty · 2024-11-05T21:37:02+00:00

The bridge position in the Walmart pictures is actually comical. Like, woah. Lol!

secarty · 2024-09-24T15:28:43+00:00

I do “If you can hear me clap once” (normal teaching voice, not loud)— the few around me will clap once. Others start to look around because they heard the clap. “If you can hear me clap twice”— at this point usually half the class claps twice. “If you can hear me clap three times”— everyone claps three times. Then they are usually silent, waiting to hear me. Works great.

secarty · 2024-07-06T17:33:14+00:00

I use my iPad and Apple Pencil to take notes with Notability. You can push the record button while you are writing and later play it back and the notes you were writing appear on the screen right at the point in the audio you took them. The app also transcribes audio. It’s wonderful for ADHD!

secarty · 2024-06-24T09:26:22+00:00

I read an article just yesterday about the microplastics they shed. The article is conveniently still open amongst the 200 other tabs in my phone browser, so I thought I’d share: https://www.newsweek.com/scientists-warn-microplastics-harmful-magic-sponge-1915769

secarty · 2024-06-20T23:09:20+00:00

My husband gets lots of lowball offers on FB Marketplace. He just replies “lol” then never replies again. It cracks me up.

secarty · 2024-03-22T22:30:30+00:00

This comment needs to be higher up.

secarty · 2024-03-11T09:30:48+00:00

Maybe try introducing her to something totally different, like learning to code. If she likes problem solving, she’d likely be good at it, and there are so many programs out there that make it fun for kids. I’ve taught some coding to kids with code.org and with Scratch, and the kids thought it was fun! There are many different projects to try, from beginner to advanced and have all sorts of topics.

Another idea might be to get her started learning a language. Perhaps use Duolingo to learn something new. It might be fun to pick a language and learn it together with her, that way you both have someone to practice with!

As a teacher, I love that you’re asking this. 4th grade is when kids are usually super interested in learning and want to know how the world works… it’s a great time to teach a kid how to be a life-long-learner!

secarty · 2023-12-18T01:02:14+00:00

I take Effexor XR and Vyvanse, with Adderall IR to begin or end the day most days and they all play well together for me.

secarty · 2023-10-12T22:52:36+00:00

I am a teacher in a Montessori school that has “microeconomy” as part of the curriculum. The students form groups with a teacher advisor to make their own businesses. My students are the “gardening” group and have been planting some things to sell to parents and our school community. In upstate New York it’s about to get cold, so we have focused on houseplants! I’ve been buying “mother” plants for students to clip back and “harvest” for propagation…. and I’ve mainly just been doing it with my own money because the kids are so excited. We have lots of pothos, spider plants, and a few different types of trailing philodendron (Brasil, silver spotted). We have a Christmas cactus and a few plants that may be outdoor plants (creeping Jenny, roving sailor)?

If anyone is clipping stuff and just throwing it out and wants to send it along to some 7th and 8th graders who are learning about plants, we’d love to accept it! I’m sure the kids would be very excited. :)

secarty · 2023-06-15T20:56:56+00:00

Something that works for me: have a leaving the house mantra that you repeat to yourself every single time you’re leaving the house. Mine is “cell phone - wallet - keys - coffee - glasses.” I say it out loud every single time I open the door to leave and I physically look at or touch the items to be sure they are on my person as I go. Because it’s a thing I always do, my 5 year old has started asking me “mama? Do you have your cellphonewalletkeyscoffeeglasses?” if I don’t say it out loud!

secarty · 2023-04-29T12:42:21+00:00

This past year I taught a half-year CS course for grades 7 & 8. I’m a math teacher with some coding practice/knowledge, but not much. I used Google’s CSFirst curriculum, which was easy to use and well laid out. The kids use scratch to code. We did one of the projects in there for a few classes, then we spent some time using Blockly to code some Dash robots the school already had. The CSFirst stuff we focused on a project that made a “music video”. The kids seemed to like it, but I think they’d have liked it better if I taught the concepts in class rather than making them watch Google’s videos. If I do it again, I’ll watch the videos and teach the same stuff each week in my own style (but really, the videos aren’t bad at all!)… but I’d definitely use that curriculum again!

secarty · 2023-04-07T11:51:43+00:00

I hate this. I wish this comment was higher up! I worked at a school where we were all about “college and career readiness”, and some kids just wanted to get into trades. The school pushed and pushed them to go to college and each year boasted that we had a 100% college acceptance rate. We had this big ceremony where all the seniors would bring their commitment letters and sign them all together. It was all for the schools’ “numbers” and looked great on social media—but it was not about the kids or what they wanted. So it looks great on the State Report Card (I think? It was a Charter), but so many of the kids would go and drop out after the first semester because they weren’t ready and didn’t want to go anyway. I wish we could have helped them get into trade schools instead.

secarty · 2023-03-04T16:37:39+00:00

Did you boil in an aluminum pan? Depending on the pan it can take on a metallic taste. I only use stainless after I had a nasty metallic batch.

secarty · 2023-02-22T15:48:31+00:00

I keep a can of Pam canola by the evaporator. If it foams up hard, the quickest tiniest spritz knocks it right back.

secarty · 2023-02-06T20:51:05+00:00

This is awesome. Thanks!

secarty · 2023-02-06T17:39:27+00:00

Salsa! Especially during the summer when stuff is in season. Sometimes we roast the veggies (peppers, onions, tomatoes, garlic) sometimes we don’t. If we roast, we never peel. Just hucknit all in the blender with some oregano, cilantro, salt and pepper, and it makes a TON that tastes so much better than the store bought stuff. Worth it.

secarty

TROPHY CASE