Blank Page

January 4th. Another new day for the new year. This morning I read a quote "Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one." I have been thinking about this quote all day as I moved through my day with he students. What would my book say? Would there be quotes in it? What would my students say? I am always telling my class that it is your actions that will speak louder than your words., So that leaves me to wonder.... "What are my actions saying?" Each interaction I have with my students should show them how much I care about them as a learner. I want them to grow and become stronger students, so am I showing them that as I interact. I feel like math today was that interaction. We are working on decimal division. I do not want to just show my kids the "remove the decimal and divide and then count the decimal places to put it in the answer" trick. I want my kids to be thinkers of math. Today was that day. We came up with such a great generalization about decimal division. The students figured out the following 2 statements:

"When the dividend is greater than the divisor, the quotient is greater than 1. When the dividend is less than the divisor the quotient is less than 1."

I was so excited as the students worked to then solve problems. Today, during math, I accomplished my goal. My actions did match my words. So, for most of today, my page would be full of positive comments. Lets hope tomorrow will be as well.