Interactive Algebra!

If you've ever been pregnant, been married to a pregnant woman or known someone, anyone, who has ever been pregnant at some point in their lives, you might be familiar with the term "pregnancy insomnia". As a pretty much lifelong insomniac (I remember staring at the walls as a kid), I thought this thing couldn't touch my "real" insomnia. Boy was I wrong. It would be 3AM, I'd need to get up for work in 3 hours, and I'd be wide awake. Everything hurt. My mind was racing trying to remember which side I was allowed to sleep on and what each movement meant. I was a complete disaster!

Here's my stomach at a month before delivery. My Mom thought would be hilarious to take this photo. 

So while I was pregnant and not sleeping I spent my time dreaming in other ways - of cool things for Algebra students. Weird? Maybe! One of those dreams was an Algebra Interactive Notebook that covered all aspects of graphing in Algebra. I'd go to bed at regular time then sneak away to work on it in the back room. Oh the good old days before a mortgage and endless house repairs! In the top photo you can see a flip book for finding the equation of a line given 2 points, a spinner that shows the different linear equations and a foldable for parallel and perpendicular lines. It took me forever to get that spinner right!

In this photo, you can see a yellow pocket holding pink slope cards, a y=mx+b flippable, a point-slope flippable, and green step cards for finding the equation of a line given a graph. This is always hard for my students. 

Underneath each flap of the y=mx+b and point-slope flippables are explanations of the variables. The same is true for the yellow slope equation flippable below. These are a great reference for students who easily forget what the variables mean.

This last photo shows the rest of the 11 flippables: the slope equation, a pink fan giving the steps to find the equation of a line given slope and a point and a yellow vertical flippable for finding the equation of a line given a table. This one is also really tricky for my students. 

To be honest, this was my most ambitious project outside of my science fair project on butterflies in 4th grade. That one was a total bear! When I sit down to look at the lapbook I put together with all these flippables in it, it really makes me wish I still taught Algebra 1. Ten years into a 30-year career, things can always change.