In the video below, I share how I finish day 1 of the school year. I share my second classroom mantra and the card trick activity I use from Peter Liljehdahl's book Building Thinking Classroom in Mathematics.

Embracing the Info Gap is important because it helps boost student curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking. Creating an Info Gap is a key ingredient to the Estimation 180 Toolkit framework. You can learn more about the toolkit at estimation180.com/toolkit where teachers get exclusive access to grade specific tasks along with downloadable files, video introductions, video reveals, and a community of educators sharing with each other.

I finish Day 1 by introducing the idea of students being in a Thinking Classroom where they will get a lot of practice developing both the life and math skills of problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication. Inspired by Peter Liljehdahl's book Building Thinking Classroom in Mathematics. We will end the class with a card trick (21) and them working at the whiteboards to try and figure out the trick. 30 minutes is enough time to get started and possibly finish the task. If not, I will see them next class and review it. 

The next time I see students, I ask someone to share the solution to the stick puzzles. Dan Meyer shared a great analogy once about creating a math "Headache" and students needing resolution (aspirin). Many students have that resolution and I explain the importance of that info gap and how they productively struggled, creating a headache, but the solution was the aspirin because it brought relief. That will happen in math class this year when we are problem-solving. You might solve it and experience that pride and excitement, you might get frustrated but know that you might eventually figure it out or a classmate or Mr. Stadel will provide some relief. 

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