Summer Inspirations: Week 2

I still have 10 work days left and today we actually had school cancelled because it is going to approach 100. New England is crazy! For those of you already on vacation, here are some inspirational people, accounts, and books to follow!

@gafe4littles

Tech Educator Podcast

Cult of Pedagogy

Learn Like a Pirate

Summer Inspirations Round Up - Click here to see all the current Summer Inspiration Weeks

Back to School!!!!

I looked at my blog the other day and couldn't believe that I haven't updated since July!  The start to the year has been fabulous!  My seventh graders are adorable and witty.  They make me laugh every day.  My eighth grade is a wonderful group to loop with.  We are already having so much fun.  So, how did I start my year?

#1  Yoga Balls!!!

I have been doing tons of research on sensory integration lately and realized that although I make room for movement breaks and try to plan hands on lessons, some of my kiddos need more.  We tried a couple of yoga balls in the class and the next thing I know EVERY one of my kids wants to sit on one.  I did a GoFund me and through the generosity of my amazing family, was able to buy a classroom set of balls and an air pump.  I bought them at 5 Below for 5 bucks and the kids and I couldn't be happier!

I got a new couch too.  I'm becoming quite the lounge!

#2 Over the summer I read this amazing book called learn Like a Pirate.  It was written by an amazing educator named Paul Solarz about his journey to create a student led classroom.  I'm going to slowly start to implement some of his ideas this year and I started with this fabulous team activity that I read about at Runde's Room. They looooove it and it really set us up to talk about working as a team where I am the coach.

#3 It is primary season baby!!!

I am an election enthusiast, nerd, and connoisseur! I created this fun primary board that we use for Do Nows and to spark amazing conversations.  I love that the whole school likes to stop by and talk with the kids about the race!  if you are interested, you can find it here at Teachers Pay Teachers.

Lastly, I'm gearing up for some amazing green screen videos and finally invested in some longer lasting fabric!

The kids can't wait to get out  our video studio up and running!!!

What's In My iPhone?

So my students have turned me on to these YouTube celebrities that talk about hair and makeup and the maddening idea of what is in their purses or what their room looks like.  I really do find it absolutely amazing that 4 million people would care what is in the purse of a YouTube celebrity... but I get it.  I have to admit that I absolutely loooove Nerdy Nummies with Rosanna Pansino and listen to her talk about nothing.
All of this gave me an idea, though.  Every day I leave school with about 20% juice left in my battery because I use my phone constantly... seriously, I abuse my phone.  The kids and I both know that my phone enables us to have the class they enjoy.  So, what's in my phone?

Photos - Photos are obvious.  I take pictures all the time for my blog and our schools website.  But how do I use it to truly engage learners?  I use it like a document camera.  In my school district they are fabulous and give each teacher a MacBook Pro.  Because of this, when I take a picture on my phone, it shows up in my photo album about 1 minute later.  I can quickly take a picture of amazing work and project it quickly.  The kids loooove seeing their work projected!!!

YouTube - I worship at that altar of Youtube in class and have figured out how to get around my distict's filter.  I recently received an Apple TV for my class (AMEN!!!!) and now I can quickly project any video I'm watching.

Twitter - So, no, I don't use Twitter in the classroom but Twitter has truly helped me to become a better teacher.  Over the last three years I have taken part in #edchat, #sschat, #tlap, and #sstlap.  I have sat through a lot of PD in my 16 years.  I have learned how to write across the curriculum, manage my classroom, and collaborate with other disciplines.  I have never heard, "Hey!  We're getting this amazing social studies person in to talk to you guys."  Twitter allows me to have relevant PD every week and learn from amazing teachers.  And, to be honest..... PD is so much better in pajamas with a glass of wine:)

 Google Drive - As most of you know, I'm a google fanatic.  Not only can I access Drive easily, I've turned it into a mobile gradebook.  I've set up a spreadsheet with all my classes and it allows me to walk around the classroom easily gathering grades from kids.  I don't have to be anchored to a desk and I don't need to double enter from a paper and clipboard.

Quizlet - I've blogged about Quizlet before.  The kids love it and my phone becomes a study station.  It makes me smile!

Class Dojo - I absolutely loooove that I can walk around my class and award points.  I project up the full screen so the kids can see who is earning what.  I don't use Class dojo everyday, but whenever I feel like I need the kids back on track, I can pull my phone out of my pocket and start the rewards.

Plickers - Plickers is my new favorite toy.  I use it about 3 times a week in class and the toy hasn't lost its lustre.  The kids love it and I adore the data I receive.  The other teachers in my cluster were so excited when they saw it!

Remind101 - In my district, I can not rely on internet access at home but many of my families have cell phones.  Remind101 allows me the ability to reach out whenever.  The kids love the text from Mrs. Wilkins and I love the communication.

Podcasts - I looooove listening to educational podcasts.  I'm a total ed geek but I love listening to a good discussion or debate about trends in ed.  my favorite station is Bam! Radio Network.  It offers a little something for everyone and I adore listening to it in my car on my commute.

So, now that I've shown you my iPhone, is there something amazing in your iPhone that you would like to share?

Class Dojo and the Olympics.... Win... Win!

My seventh grade class has been amazing lately and I wanted to find a way to capitalize on their academic and behavior successes.  First off, I wanted to set up an academic Olympics to coincide with Sochi. If I wasn't so new to my curriculum I could have probably lined up my unit on Greece with Sochi but I wasn't on the ball enough for that.  I decided I was going to split them into six teams: Norway, USA, Russia, Canada, Germany, and Austria.  Students are competing for points based on hard work, being on task, helping others, and academic success.  The gold medal team will get a pizza party and there will be individual awards as well.

I thought this was a great time to test drive Class Dojo and I was correct!

Before I started I wanted to lay the hook.  First, I just started having them walk into class with a live Olympics feed playing on the board.

Then a couple of days later I just started using Class Dojo in class one day when the kids were studying for a vocabulary quiz.  It was hysterical!!! They started to figure out how to get points and then they were scrambling for them.  They had no idea what they were earning or why!
I finally let them in on the secret (one kid kept begging me!) and things went awesomely!

Kids earned points for all the things I mentioned above.  Every night I calculated the team score.

Because not every group was equal in size, we decided that the average was the best way to determine a winner.

The kids have loooooooved it and have asked to continue it all year.  I love Class Dojo but it is a little daunting.  I use my phone and I spend more time watching my students than interacting with them because I am trying to be fair about rewarding points.  I have promised them that we will do a monthly challenge!

Comment below and tell me some of your Class Dojo stories!!!

Vocabulary, Quizlet, and Cell Phones

I'm blogging.... at 12:39.... on a Thursday..... why?

Snow day!  I literally think everyone on the eastern seaboard is home today battling snow or ice.  Is it me or is this the worst winter in a while?  I'll take advantage of it, though!  We start our February vacation tomorrow at 2:30 so I can take a break from planning and prepping and spend some time blogging and creating for TPT.  I'm in the middle of make a really awesome new product.... let's just say Bloom's Taxonomy....... hmmmmmmm?

So what have I been doing that's engaging?
Quizlet
For those of you new to Quizlet, it is a simple online flashcard creator that can be used by both teachers and students.  On top of flashcards, it also uses your words and definitions to make tests and games.

As a teacher you can make multiple sets and create classes to organize them.  Students can create an account and join your class so their words are always a click away.

Vocabulary has always been important to me but since I have been teaching a larger number of ELL students, it has taken on a new urgency.  I'm also a huge fan of skill building.  I always hate when I hear a middle school teacher say something along the lines of, "Jeez, these kids don't know how to study.".  Of course they don't.... no one has taught them to.  We just assume that kids will learn to study out of necessity as opposed to being shown and taken part in multiple ways to study.  

I have a very routine way of accomplishing vocab in social studies.  First, we create a page in our notebook where we list the word, define it, write the sentence from the textbook that contains the word, and draw a picture.

I used to just have my kids create a foldable with just the word and a definition but my ELL students really benefit with more time to process the word.  I have them draw the picture because I believe in adding some creativity to the process.  Our literacy specialist gave me an even better reason to continue the drawing of pictures.  The picture allows you to see if the student truly understands what the word means.  We had a whole bunch of Constitution words to work with (i.e. checks and balances, federalism, etc.).  One girl brought me her words and every picture was of a document.  I was able to ask her if she understood the words and she admitted she didn't so then we brainstormed some pictures together.
When the kids walk in the day of their vocabulary quiz I have Quizlet set up on the two classroom computers, my laptop and projector, and my phone. I let them work individually, or in groups, to study for ten to fifteen minutes. The first time I introduced this I also allowed them to download the Quizlet apps to their phones and took the time to hook them up to our class.  That time has paid off immensely.

Look at all those fabulous kids on their cell phones..... studying!!!!  They love Quizlet so much they even started to make flashcards for terms in their other classes.  Their favorite thing is to race each other on the Scatter game (it's like Memory).  I love it because they forget they're studying!  Vocabulary grades have increased 60% and my kids are learning more about themselves as students.

Check out my profile on Quizlet!

Gearing up!!!

Tomorrow is my last day of vacation.  I'm a little sad but also a lot excited about starting this new chapter of my career.  The fam and I just got back from a wonderful week in the White Mountains.

Do you like how our poor two year old is nothing but a black bar?  Maybe next year I will finally get the Christmas card pic I have always envisioned.  We almost made it this year!  We had a fabulous time at StoryLand and Santa's Village.

We're all a little excited to get back to school, though. The boy is starting first grade and beyond excited, the hub has math floating in his brain and the girl.... Well, she's two.  She doesn't know what she wants.  I actually just saw her double check to see if she had pants on.

My new school asked me to come in last week to help hire a new math teacher.  I jumped at the opportunity to help my new community and see my new classroom.  I had a great time meeting members of my new team and am blown away by my new classroom.

It is huge!!! I just left a really big classroom and this is TWICE the size!  It also has tons of storage!

 And.....

 I'm going to go to Home Depot and get some panel board to cover up the old blackboard.  I'm going to screw it to the wooden frame so it can be removed easily if I ever have to move rooms.  I'm going to iParty tomorrow to pick up some table cloths to create bulletin boards on the back walls. Of course, the elephant in the room is that.... OMG!  It has stadium seating and I like to put my midgets in groups day one.  I already have some ideas but would love to hear advice from others.  

On Monday, I start new teacher academy for half days and then next week we officially begin.   So happy  to have the time because between trying to make my  new room at least a little inhabitable (it's going to have to be a work in process) , creating interactive notebook activities for my first two units and making play doh for 120 kids (if you don't know why, you are going to have to read Teach Like A Pirate by Dave Burgess @burgessdave) I think  I'm going to be a bit busy:)

Again, if you can suggest any tips and tricks for teaching in stadium seating, I would love to hear them!

Middle School Time Savers

Summer has started and so far It has been fabulous and stressful. We have thoroughly celebrated the seventh birthday of my amazing and fabulous son and then he broke his finger falling off his new bike:(. I'm just hoping he doesn't need a cast so we can continue our daily soaking in the pool. Right now, you are getting this blog post live from jury duty!!! I have been called up for various jury duties (district and federal... Oh yes, they are different and don't care about each other or if you have already served on one... Can't we all just get along?) three times in the past three years. What does this fabulous state that I love so much, have against me?

Anybody who follows me knows my love affair with Pinterest. The love affair, though, causes me great envy. I look at these elementary school teachers' classrooms and I just drool. I love the organization and individualization that they can achieve because they have the same thirty kids all day. Don't get me wrong, I know that teaching elementary is just as hard as teaching any other grade level. I'm just envious of the way they can organize for one group of kids as opposed to five. I used this envy to figure out what I could do to create more of a flow in my class as well as create an atmosphere of independence for my almost high schoolers. So, what did I do?

1. Do Now Video

I blogged about this topic here. I incorporated a very independent Do Now into the beginning of my class but it took some of my classes longer than others to get into the groove of coming into class and getting prepared. I always tell my kids that I I don't expect them to be social studies' students the minute they get into class. Two minutes ago they were language arts' students so obviously they need time to adjust. I made this video to give them a preset length of time and a reminder. I hadn't accounted for the fact that the music was going to be a huge motivator and for some of the kids the auditory reminder was key. All in all this was a MAJOR success this year.

Here is the link to the video!

2. Get your own papers!!!

As I've stated I really worked my Do Now into less of a bonus question and more of an organization activity I have student complete every day. My Do Now always starts with a prompt to write down their homework, which is listed in the back of the class. I then have them take out anything they need to begin the first activity. I actually hang a physical copy of the activity on the board to help my visual learners. After fifteen years in teaching I decided to do something really new. I hate taking time out of class to hand stuff out, but that is traditionally how you get things to students. I decided to take a chance and have the kids pick up their own handouts. I tell the students, in th Do Now, how many sheets they need to pick up.

On the table in the back, I put all the paperwork needed for the entire class and simply label them with sticky notes.

The kids did amazing at this!!!! It saved so much time in class and really streamlined our activities. Even when the kids forgot to pick stuff up at the beginning they took it upon themselves to grab it in class when they realized they didn't have the necessary activities. This is something I'm totally taking this into next year.

3. Cheap Whiteboards

This is another Pinterest find. I placed card stock into sheet protectors and got skinny expo markers and voila......whiteboards!!!! The kids love them and they have cut down on paper use in my classroom. They are amazing for brainstorming and group activities. I place these on the kids' desks before they enter along with a pencil box or cup with the markers and a tissue for cleaning. I can't wait to find more opportunities to use these in my class.

4. Prepare the Supplies!!!

This year I spent a good amount of time preparing the resources for the kids before class. I used pencil boxes and sometimes plastic cups to put on their desks or in their groups. In these boxes I place things like highlighters, glue sticks, colored pencils, etc. It takes a good amount of time and work to set all this up but I have found it totally worth it!

Did you introduce something new this year they helped your classes? Let me know!!!

 

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