My First Semester Algebra 1 Lesson Plans (CCSS Edition) - Draft

As I indicated in a previous post, my school is in the process of rewriting our Algebra curriculum to more closely match the Common Core. I've now completed my first run through of my (very rough) first semester lesson plans to match up with this, so I thought I'd share.

Before I do that, a few important things to keep in mind:

1. Read that previous post for the specifics of my situation (the biggest one being that I see my Algebra students fewer days/minutes than a lot of folks).
   
   
2. Here is the rough outline of our translation of the Common Core Math Standards to our Algebra course.
   
   
3. When that document refers to the "CK12 Textbook", that's the textbook alternative we are creating on the CK12 site. This is even more in draft form, so you won't find it on the CK12 site just yet. We are planning on working on it throughout the school year and, with a little luck, will "publish" it to the CK12 site for 2014-15. But here's a PDF that is the result of a very quick run through to try to modify an existing CK12 text to match CCSS-M and our Algebra course. It's a good start, but has a long way to go.
   
   (Note: Our philosophy for this textbook is that it is a resource, not our curriculum or our lesson plans. As such, it is simply a place students can go to see additional examples, explanations, and practice problem sets, and therefore does not have to be perfect or match our individual teaching styles. Our additional "philosophy" is that we hope we can do a good enough job on this to convince our district not to spends tens of thousands of dollars purchasing a new "Common Core Aligned" Algebra textbook in 2014-15.)

Okay, so now on to the lesson plans.

1. These plans are written for me, so sometimes it will not be clear to someone else what I'm talking about. I do link to some things that are linkable, but if you have questions about something, feel free to ask.
   
   
2. There are also lots of question marks where I'm still debating what I want to do and/or whether I have enough time to do it.
   
   
3. As always, these are my "big picture" plans and they will get adjusted frequently based on how things go with my students throughout the semester, so don't think of these as set in concrete. For me, though, I need a pretty specific plan to work from initially, both to make sure it flows mathematically/pedagogically, and to make sure I "cover" what I have to (as much as I dislike that word).
   
   
4. You'll notice that there are five blank days at the end of the semester (as of this writing, anyway). Those are my "cushion" as inevitably things don't go as I planned (see #3). I really would prefer more than five, but given that I only get 62 class periods (with at least 9 of those shortened periods), that's the best I can manage at the moment (subject to revision as I go through it several more times - and hopefully with some feedback from you).

I'd appreciate any feedback (or questions) you'd like to share, either in the comments or via email or other means.