Back to what??? Already???

I can't believe that August starts on Monday. How depressing.  All of the things I've been putting off all summer (because I had so much time to do them) are now haunting me. Ugh.

A couple of recent thoughts:
1.  I really like the idea of using a QR code to help the kids get to their class blogs.  I was thinking of just putting it on their back to school rules paper, but they hardly ever have that.... so then I thought about stickers!  My plan now is to buy some sheets of stickers, print the QR code on them (and hopefully have enough room left on the sticker for the web address itself) and then give them to the kids to put on their school planner (which each kid receives the first day of school and is expected to have every day thereafter).  As long as I can get the printing thing down, I think this'll work. Yay me! :)

2.  I think I've finally decided how exactly I want to do quizzes in Algebra 1 and Algebra 2.  It's somewhat SBG-ish without going full blown.  I'm going to break down the quizzes by topics and enter those grades separately in my gradebook.  So then we have the advantage of seeing exactly what a kid is struggling with.  Then, one day a week (which I may push to two if I get a lot of participation) I'm going to offer them a chance to retest those topics.  They'll have to let me know the week before what they want to retest and when they're going to do it (either a select period with one of our math teacher tutors or after school).  When they retest they'll have to turn in some review problems that they've completed showing they have done some additional work to help in figuring out their problems (maybe quiz corrections, maybe those problems that are in the back of the book... I'll need to decide that) and their retest grade will replace the original.  Because I'm just offering that one day a week I'll probably let them retest two topics at once. Thoughts?

3.  I just realized this morning (yeah, I'm a little slow) that I'm teaching a new class this year.  Well, kinda new. Last year I had an Integrated Algebra 1 class (read: general) and this year it's Honors Algebra 1 (which really isn't honors, but definitely isn't general). I'm going to have to step it up a bit!  Ack.

4.  I found some new resources for projects the other night...
Algebra 1 Webquests
Algebra 1 Explorations
Workshops and Projects
Project Index from PBL Pathways
Precalc Resources