Inspiration for the Poster

I was watching on of Tony Record’s AP Calculus videos, and he made a statement about how limits are more about the journey than the destination. I like this statement because too often my students get hung up on the fact that the function is undefined at a certain point so they believe that the limit cannot exist.

I immediately made myself a note to make a poster for my classroom with this saying on it. I did find an etsy store (Inspired by Math) that has a poster already created with the statement “Limits are about the journey not the destination.” While their design is absolutely gorgeous, I decided to go with a play on a speed limit sign when making a poster for my own classroom.

Poster Size Options

Here’s my American speed limit inspired sign which reads “Limits are about the journey not the destination.” I created the poster in Canva, and I have created it in two different sizes.

I wanted it to be a bit bigger than a letter-sized sheet of paper, so I printed the 11 x 17 version for my classroom. Note: the resulting poster will need to be trimmed. The speed limit sign itself is not 11 x 17 because I wanted to keep the ratio/look of a typical sign you would see along a highway.

After printing it on 11 x 17 cardstock, I laminated the poster and then trimmed around the edges of the sign before hanging it up in my high school math classroom next to my concavity posters.

What are Divisibility Rules? 

Divisibility rules are easy to memorize tests that students can use to determine if any whole number is divisible by a given number. Often, this is referred to as performing a “divisibility test.” 

Depending on what number you are looking to check for divisibility by, you might have to look at just the last digit of the number, you might have to consider the sum of the digits of the number, or you might have to do a combination of these. 

Free Download of Divisibility Rules Printable Chart

I created this printable divisibility rules chart that can be placed in a student’s notebook to serve as a reference tool throughout the school year. Divisibility rules are first taught in elementary school, but their application extends through middle school and high school. It is never too late to provide students with a divisibility rules chart as a reference tool. 

This printable divisibility rules chart is available to download as a PDF and as an editable Publisher file. In order to edit the Publisher file, you will need to make sure you have Microsoft Publisher installed on your computer.

Divisibility Rules Printable Chart (PDF) (3010 downloads )

Divisibility Rules Printable Chart (Editable Publisher File ZIP) (820 downloads )

The History of These Posters

The first iteration of these parent function posters was created by my husband and math teacher extraordinare, Shaun Carter. He created a free printable set of letter-sized parent function posters when he was teaching Algebra 2.

When my husband started grad school back in 2018 and I landed my current job (I was teaching Algebra 2 and Precalculus at the time), Shaun let me borrow his pretty set of laminated parent function posters to hang in my classroom.

I had these hanging in my classroom for several years, and I tried various different places to hang them. Some years, they were next to my dry erase board. One year I even taped them on top of a nonworking SMARTboard.

I kept running into an issue, though. I wanted all of my students to reference them, but they were kinda hard to see from certain parts of the room.

This year, I decided to take Shaun’s files for the parent function posters and put my own spin on them. Instead of making letter-sized posters, I opted to print my posters on 11 x 17 cardstock. By doubling the size of the posters, you can now easily see them no matter where you are sitting in my classroom.

They do take up more space, but I actually LOVE the effect they have had on my classroom decor. My wall of parent functions really does make me smile.

So I have to give a very special shout-out to my amazing husband. These posters were made possible thanks to his doing the difficult work of recreating the graphs of each of the functions back when he created the original letter-sized version of the posters.

Printing and Prepping the Posters

These posters are designed to print on ledger sized paper (11 inches x 17 inches). Your computer/printer may also refer to this as tabloid sized paper.

For my non-North American readers, you should be able to print the PDF file for these posters on A3 paper if you allow your pdf reader to scale the images slightly to fit.

I printed the posters on 11 x 17 cardstock. For years, this has been my go-to size for creating my own posters for my classroom. I really wish my school had a poster printer to create larger posters, but that is sadly not our reality…

To add a pop of color to the posters and make them stand out against the white walls of my classroom, I reprinted the names of each parent function on colored paper and glued it to the poster before running it through the laminator.

I was lucky to receive a grant this year for quite a few different classroom supplies including a 13 inch laminator and a box of 11 x 17 matte laminating pouches. Matte laminating pouches are significantly pricier than your typical laminating pouches, but they look so much nicer hanging on the wall because the fluorescent lights in my classroom ceiling cause an awful glare on regular lamination. These do look the tiniest bit cloudy when you are super close-up, but they look great from a normal distance away.

Don’t want to worry about cutting and pasting the parent function titles on in a different color? That’s totally okay. There is a plain version of the poster files available at the bottom of this post that require absolutely no cutting and pasting!

Classroom Display Ideas

After laminating the parent function posters, I created a classroom display with them by hanging them in a long line along one of the walls of my classroom. I hung them between the ceiling and a dry erase board.

I just can’t get over how perfect they look on the wall of my high school math classroom.

What Parent Functions are Included?

13 Parent Functions are included in the downloadable file. If your specific course or curriculum needs other parent functions, you should be able to download the editable PPT file and add additional parent functions to the posters as needed.

Here are the included parent functions:

• Constant
• Linear
• Absolute Value
• Quadratic (Parabola)
• Cubic
• Quartic
• Quintic
• Square Root
• Cube Root
• Rational (Hyperbola)
• Rational (Truncus)
• Exponential
• Logarithmic

Other Parent Function Posters

I also created a set of parent function posters for the 12 Basic Functions specified in the Demana & Waits Precalculus textbook.

Why I Created These Posters

It’s almost August here in Oklahoma, and that means one thing: back to school is right around the corner! I really don’t know where this summer went. It seems like almost everything I put on my summer to do list is still there.

One thing that I did mark off my list was attending an APSI (Advanced Placement Summer Institute) for the new AP Precalculus course that is being offered this coming school year.

I’m excited for the new AP Precalculus course, but it is definitely going to stretch me this year as a teacher.

I am used to introducing my calculus students to the concept of concavity and determining where a graph is concave up or concave down. This is now an AP Precalculus standard.

Since I expect my AP Precalc students might struggle a bit with this concept, I decided to create a set of concavity posters that could be used in an AP Precalculus classroom or any calculus classroom for that matter.

After all, I never turn down the opportunity to create some new math posters to decorate my classroom.

Memory Tool for Concave Up vs Concave Down

I can’t tell you exactly where I first heard the phrase “Concave up like a cup. Concave down like a frown.” But it has stuck with me for many years.

Maybe it was my calculus teacher in high school? Maybe I heard it at some point in college?

I did a quick google search which brought up a 2013 blog post from Ben Orlin on how to remember concavity with the same memory tool for remembering concave up vs concave down. So I think it’s a pretty common phrase for math teachers.

Concave Up Like a Cup Poster

Concave Down Like a Frown Poster

Printing and Prepping the Posters for the Math Classroom

I created two different sizes of these concavity posters, and I’m not quite sure which one I am going to use myself just quite yet. They are available to download in 8.5 x 11 (letter sized) and 11 x 17 (tabloid sized – very similar to A3) formats.

I won’t really do much decorating of my classroom until the 7th or so of August, so I’ve got some time to think about it.

I guess I’m trying to decide if I want to splurge on a package of 11 x 17 colored cardstock for making new posters this summer. Or should I print them on my usual 11 x 17 cardstock that is just a boring white color? Or should I print them on bright Astrobrights letter-sized paper?

Decisions, decisions, decisions…

Don’t worry. Once I have these printed and up in my classroom, I will update this post with a photo of the posters in my classroom.

What is ASTC used for in Trigonometry?

ASTC is a mnemonic device to help trigonometry students remember the signs of trig functions in various quadrants on the coordinate plane.

The letters A, S, T, and C tell which trig function(s) is/are positive in that quadrant.

A is found in Quadrant I. The A stands for “All” since all of the trigonometric functions are positive in the first quadrant of the coordinate plane.

S is found in Quadrant II. The S stands for “Sine” since the sine function is positive in the second quadrant. Cosecant (the reciprocal of sin) is also positive in the second quadrant. All of the other trig functions are negative in Q2.

T is found in Quadrant III. The T stands for “Tangent” since the tangent function is positive in the third quadrant. Cotangent (the reciprocal of tan) is also positive in the third quadrant. All of the other trig functions are negative in Q3.

C is found in Quadrant IV. The C stands for “Cosine” since the cosine function is positive in the fourth quadrant. Secant (the reciprocal of sec) is also positive in the fourth quadrant. All of the other trig functions are negative in Q4.

In school, I was taught to remember ASTC using the sentences “All students take calculus” and “All students take classes.”

More Practice with Determining the Signs of Trig Functions

Looking for resources on teaching/practicing determining the signs of trig functions in various quadrants? I have created several different resources for this in the past.

• Quadrants Unlocked Activity
• Foldable with Signs of Trig Functions in Each Quadrant
• The Great Quadrant Guessing Game

Printing and Prepping the ASTC Posters

I usually spend several class periods having my students determine the signs of various trig functions without introducing them to the ASTC rule/shortcut.

However, I do eventually introduce this memory tool after a few days of working with these sorts of problems once students start trying to create their own methods of remembering where various trig functions are positive or negative.

Usually, their attempt at summarizing the information is to draw a coordinate plane and list each trig function in the quadrant and tell if it negative or positive. This works, but it is a ton of information.

The ASTC Diagram (or CAST Diagram) achieves the same purpose with a lot less writing. And it is a lot easier for students to remember on exams!

This year, I decided to take things one step further and make a colorful poster to hang up on my dry erase as a reference.

I created a template and printed the letters for ASTC on four different colors of Astrobrights paper. I just printed these on regular letter-sized paper.

Next, I ran the posters through my laminator. I recently invested in a package of matte laminating sheets for printing posters to help avoid that dreaded poster glare from the flourescent lights on my laminated pages.

MATH = LOVE RECOMMENDS…

A laminator is a MUST-HAVE for me as a math teacher! I spent my first six years as a teacher at a school with a broken laminator, so I had to find a way to laminate things myself.

I’ve had several laminators over the years. I currently use a Scotch laminator at home and a Swingline laminator at school.

• Scotch Laminator
• Swingline Laminator
• Nuova Laminating Pouches

I highly recommend splurging a bit on the actual laminator and buying the cheapest laminating pouches you can find!

The matte laminating pouches are a bit pricey compared to regular laminating sheets, but they are definitely worth it for posters that will be displayed for long periods of time in your classroom!

Once my posters were all laminated, it was time to cut out the four pieces.

As you can see below, each poster contains one full arrow and one half arrow. They are designed like this so that the posters will overlap one another and sort of “lock together” to form one giant coordinate plane.

I absolutely love how the posters look when they are put together!

I ended up hanging my ASTC posters next to my magnetic unit circle with my printable unit circle magnets. I really like how this little corner of my room is turning into a trigonometric reference center!

Alternate Version

I have included the same information from the factorial poster along with information about double factorials on a printable factorial table that you might also find useful.

I didn’t have these posters hanging up in my classroom this past year, but I found myself wishing that I had made a place for them multiple times throughout the year! I will definitely be finding a place to hang them up for this coming year.

These equality and inequality symbols posters are actually part of a larger set of math symbols posters that I made a few years ago.

If you are looking for a smaller set of posters of inequality symbols, check out these inequality symbol posters created by my husband, Shaun Carter. I really like how Shaun added a reminder of how to graph each equality or inequality symbol on a number line.