Five for Friday on Saturday...again. :)

Well, here we are again...a Five for Friday on a Saturday. :) That's my new trend lately. It was ANOTHER great week with my middle schoolers...STILL loving it!!!!! If you have always thought about giving it a try I HIGHLYYYYYYYYYYY recommend it!  Thank you as always to Kacey for a GREAT link up over at Doodle Bugs Teaching!

 This week we finished up learning about graphing points on a coordinate grid.  I remember in the past I used an Angry Birds activity (if you follow me on Instagram:  @immixingitupinmiddle you already know this), but I searched HIGH and LOW and COULD NOT FIND THEM!!!!!!  I had pinned them, and the link was no longer working.  However, after much searching I found an activity on Mrs. White's Blog that had them on it.  They had a blast...and they were REALLY challenging for them to do!

  

 Along with coordinate graphing, the students worked this week on reflecting points over the x and y axis.  They really had trouble with this, so I thought that I would make some practice sheets for them!  However, I thought it would be more fun if the points actually made a picture (like the Angry Birds one).  So...I created a sheet for them to graph:

The students graphed the points that I gave them first (which was just one half of the picture).  They then had to reflect each point over the y-axis to reveal a new set of points!  Once they did that, they could graph the new half of the pictures! :)  Once they graph all of the points they had a whole picture!  They LOVED it..so much so, that I am in the process of creating more of the sheets (maybe some for fall/winter themed??)  Then the students can have an activity to do for fun around that time of the year.  I also plan to keep some pictures in my sub binder for work if I am ever absent in an emergency...these would be PERFECT!!!! 

Here is my first three that have been created!  Just click on the picture if you're interested!!!

 This week, we also went to the science lab and investigated leaves.  We learned about photosynthesis this week, and plan to learn about cellular respiration this week, so as a lab Thursday, students were told to bring in a leaf.  We then looked at them under the microscope.  The students made observations, were SOOOOOOO excited, which in turn made this one of my most favorite labs so far this year!  

 We have still been working this week with positive and negative integers, and on Thursday, students played with my positive and negative task card set.  I used in in pairs/groups of 3 and had the students use it for Showdown! (for those of you teachers that use Kagan).  There are a million ways that you could use these task cards in your classrooms!  They really had fun...plus they had practice with adding and subtracting those positive and negative integers with real world word problems!  It was GREAT!

You can pick them up in my TPT store by clicking on the picture below:

This week we will be reviewing LCM and GCF.  This year the students need to use this knowledge to solve real world problems, so look next week for some task cards that will focus on LCM and GCF in WORD PROBLEMS!!! :)  I will definitely be needing those in my room this week! So be sure to check back next Friday (well, let's be honest...SATURDAY) to see how I used them in my classroom! 

 Also, don't forget to check out my HUGE unit on 6th Grade Number Systems for CCSS!  It's everything you need in one COPY FRIENDLY pack! :)  I have blogged about it HERE and HERE.  I'll be adding MORE to it soon (at LEAST another 50 questions including spiral review, so make sure to get it before the price increases!).  It will end up being over 200 questions worth of copy machine friendly practice!!!