Dead Bunny on YouTube

Sorry I’ve been away, everyone. Work has been just a little crazy. Actually, it’s been a lot crazy. On top of that, my computer had problems and had to go away for a long time…with all of my current proijects on it, including Dead Bunny’s book. The computer’s back now, and I have a number of things to learn and work on to catch up those lost months.

While I was on a borrowed computer, though, I did manage to step outside my comfort zone and make some things for you. One of the things I’ve always wanted to have for this site is a series of videos teaching various bits of math. I’m pleased to announce the first five are completed, and available on YouTube.

Please forgive the quality. I’ve never done anything like this before, so it’s been a real learning experience. And as you can see by looking at them, I still have more to learn. So, please forgive the audio and video quality as you enjoy the videos.

Dead Bunny’s Guide to Algebra on YouTube

Going on a break

First, I’d like to apologize for the last month. Thanks to a series of bad storms in December and January, the local schools ended up with a weird end-of-school pattern. For the last month, my students have all been moving through various stages of final projects and exams. It’s been crazy watching the staggered schedule.It took up a lot of my time and energy trying to make sure everyone was wrapping up on a positive note.

Second, Dead Bunny is taking a break for the summer. I’d like to say it’s because my students won’t be around to inspire topics, but I teach year-round because I’m a tutor. The actual reason for the hiatus is because I’m working on a pair of special new attractions for the site.

The hope is that when Dead Bunny returns in the fall, there will be the first of several video tutorials. I’m already hard at work on the first one, but it’s the first time I’ve done something like this, so it’s a serious learning curve.

I’m also still working on putting together the book, and am hoping the little bit of extra free time I’ll get from taking a break now will let me get some serious work done on it.

Feel free to use the site in my absence. You can email me if you have any questions or suggestions (or just want to say hi). Thank you for your patience, and we’ll see you in the fall!

Welcome to Dead Bunny’s blog

It may take me a bit to figure out how to use this place to my satisfaction, but have no fear I’ll get it.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Dead Bunny, please allow me to introduce this mascot. Eventually, I’ll save this to an about page so everyone can meet him.

Let’s get the preliminaries out of the way, Dead Bunny actually started out as a live bunny. I was trying to teach a student prepositions by explaining that a preposition is a word that can describe the relationship between a bunny and a box. (I was scarred in my youth by a video teaching prepositions this way.)

We were working through a worksheet, and I was trying to help her without giving her the answers. At one point, I had the bunny-shaped hand moving off the box-shaped hand. She guessed all manner of prepositions, none of them the right one. Finally, I made the bunny hand fall off the box hand and land on its side.

The student, a nine year old with a penchant for pink frilliness, brightly exclaimed, “The bunny falls off the box and dies!” She drew pictures of the unfortunate bunny on everything, and even took to calling me “Dead Bunny”. It was quite fun to have to explain that one, but it also made me the resident expert on teaching prepositions.

The original plan was to have Dead Bunny teach grammar and writing, but I’ve finally decided that Dead Bunny should actually be the mascot for all of my teaching products I’m planning out.

Dead Bunny’s first offering is going to be a math book designed to serve as a reference for students struggling with pre-algebra and algebra. I’m writing it as a series of articles that will be smoothed into a book. The plan is to post each article here, and then it will be your job to let me know what you think about it.

To put it simply, you’re going to help me make sure my book is actually helpful!

The first articles are already underway, so keep an eye here for them.