Let's try this again.

Welcome to Functional Outliers...Making Mathematicians out of Middle Schoolers.  See what I did there? A little play on math words.  Middle school is such an awkward time, I am betting they all feel a bit like outliers and I am trying turn them into functional beings before they head to high school.  

I know.  It's kind of cheesy, but it was the best I could come up with.  I tried Axis of Powers...Empowering Middle Schoolers to Think and Delta Sphere...Changing the World One Math Lesson at a Time, too.  There were many others on the brainstorm list, but I am truly embarrassed to mention them!  

I guess I will begin by telling you a little about myself and why I want to blog.  Even though I don't really know if that is the usual thing to do.  I follow lots of blogs.  And by follow, I mean that every day I get an e-mail from bloglovin showing some of the new postings and that little red number on the button in my browser bar keeps growing.  But, I have to say that I don't think I have ever read the first post of any of them, so I don't really know if introductions are the thing to do.

This is my blog.  So I'll do it anyway.

A few  facts about me:

• I live in the town I grew up in...almost exactly halfway between my parents and the in-laws.
• I was fortunate enough to be a NC Teaching Fellow at UNC...Go Tarheels!
• I teach at a very small charter school that I love.
• I have two sons...ages 15 and 13...and an awesome husband.
• I have taught every PreK-8 grade except K, 2 and 4.
• I am surprised that I ended up in middle school.
• This is my second attempt at blogging.  Let's hope it sticks this time!
• I LOVE MATH!

I have really wanted to blog for a while now.  As I said before, I follow several and I am always amazed at the great things people come up with to share with the world.  My goal for this blog is to share my journey teaching middle school math with anyone who wants to listen.  I am hoping to use this as a reflection on my teaching and as a platform to share insights, ideas and resources that that you can use with your students.  Hopefully, I can keep this one going and meet some great people along the way.

I don't make any promises about how often I will post.  My schedule gets pretty crazy sometimes and I'm a bit of an edit and revise freak.  I'm working on my perfectionism, but it's a slow and painful process.  More on that later.

See you next time!  Thanks for visiting!