Do you know what makes my students really, really, really happy?
Nothing makes my students happier than a big bucket of fabric! If you have a bucket of fabric you have unlimited costumes and imagination!
I have been having kids make plays or videos for all of my 18 years but I never saw the power of the fabric bucket till I went to my new school. The fabric bucket does not belong to me but is actually shared among teachers and used for Hammurabi plays, Greek God skits, and vocabulary videos. I have the biggest classroom so I get physical ownership of it and I am lucky!
The fabric is old sheets, drapes, sashes, and rope. It has turned my kids into Babylonians, women on the Oregon Trail, and the red fabric can be wrapped to become a Redcoat. When I mention the use of the bucket the kiddos start frothing at the mouth so I often have to hold off on costumes until plays and videos are written and rehearsed. Once they get their hands on it, though, they become giggly little kids again and that makes me happy. Middle school kids should be excited about pretend play. It means they are still kids. Get yourself a bucket a bucket of fabric and watch your students become creative!!!
At the end of the year I decided to build my entire Rome unit as a huge challenge (I'll blog on that later!). I tried to come up with different tasks that would engage the kids and teach them about Rome all the while trying to push through the end of the year AND 8 snow days to make up.
We did a brief but thorough study on aqueducts and I racked my head for a week on how I could create an aqueduct building challenge. I found some great ones on the internet but most of them included water (I love my 7th graders but I don't trust them with any liquids) or they required some very expensive supplies. I finally came up with this simple but really fun challenge as I was driving to pick up my little one from daycare.
Supplies:
3 pieces of posterboard
roll of masking tape
access to as many books and boxes the classroom had to offer
1 ping pong ball
1 dessert plate
I'm kind of lucky because my classroom is an old chorus room. I already had the height built in but I'm sure you can replicate this in your own rooms. Each group had to have their ping pong ball travel from a desk on top of the steps (their reservoir) and down their aqueduct. At the bottom I had taped dessert plates to the ground (Rome). The challenge was to create a full ramp that would gently lay the ping pong ball onto the dessert plate without bouncing out. The dessert plate was Rome and if the ball bounced out, it meant the water was flowing too fast.
My students ADORED this absolutely simple challenge. We did it during one class period but they begged me to let the do it another day so they could capitalize on what they had found out. Both my science teacher and my principal loved that I had incorporated a STEM activity into my ancient history class. After we completed the task, we got together and had a think tank on why we did this activity and the kids totally understand the engineering marvel the aqueducts were in a time of so little technology and schooling.
Every classroom benefits from these two purchases:
So, in the weeks before the holiday break, my kiddos walked into this.....
I you are a reader of my blog, you will recognize this as an activity I did last year on the Boston Massacre. Read about it here! For those of you that followed along last year, do you love my new tablecloth? Bloodier than last year's window clings and I get to use it again and again.
My eighth graders were so excited because they saw the set up of this last year. They did such an amazing job!!! These kiddos are champions of textual evidence and totally would have gotten those British soldiers off in a court of law!
It is that time of year again…. time to make resolutions for becoming a better you, trying really hard for about two and a half weeks, and then letting life take over and those resolutions go by the wayside…. ugh:( Luckily, I find resolutions for the classroom much easier to keep than decreasing carbs (bread…. I love bread!!!! Want to know what I like with my bread? More BREAD!!!) so even though we are less than half way through the year, this is a great time to take stock and make some goals going forward.
So, how will I make 2015 the best year for my students? Simply, I will continue to ENGAGE! I will continue to get my kiddos out of their seats and help them interact with their learning. Im going to accomplish this in two ways:
2) Extend their Learning: I have so many kiddos that are begging to be challenged! Technology can truly help me do this. For the rest of the year I need to enrich their learning by continuing to implement my Google Classroom extension assignments, have them play more with video using websites like Zaption and EduCanon, and utilize those amazing phones they have in their pockets for response systems and classroom videos (blog post coming soon on these amazing vocabulary videos we made with their own phones and editing apps of their choice!!!) As usual they taught me a thing or two!
So, comment up people! How are you going to make 2015 the best year ever for your students? I’d love to hear your ideas!!!
Woo hoo! Three day weekend! My kiddos and I have had an amazing start to the year but I sure deserve this weekend! I've been having some fabulous stuff going on in my class lately.
1) I'm still totally in love with Plickers!
Plickers is better than ever and just did some amazing upgrades to their website. You can now make multiple choice questions and create the questions online to save for later. I use these a lot in class and was trying to find a streamlined way for us to use them at the beginning of class. Voila!!! I had them paste them in the back of their interactive notebooks.
Now Plickers is even quicker and more useful than it was before!
2) I have a huge number of ELLs in my class and they are amazing. We are noticing that they really don't like to speak academically. I've decided that is one of my focuses this year and employed a trick from last year. The kiddos did an awesome activity on the possibilities of what may have happened to the inhabitants of Roanoke. In the end, the kiddos had to make a claim about what they thought happened. Before I sent them to pen and paper I wanted them to be able to discuss their ideas and get feedback from others. So I did the only thing that made sense....
I made them SPEED DATE!!!!!
I partnered up the kids and gave them questions that would help them solidify their claim.
They had to minutes to discuss it with their partner but their was one rule..... no writing. After two minutes they had to switch partners and the speed dating wasn't done until they had worked with all four questions. It was wonderful and I got the most amazing responses out of my kiddos.
3) I created an amazing History Lab for my little ones. We were learning about the types of government and I decided to focus on just monarchy, dictatorship, democracy, and monarchy. The students had the task of building the tallest freestanding tower with minimal supplies. Each person, though, was given a task and role that mimicked a different type of government. The kids experienced each government and played roles such as monarch, dictator, elected official, heir, and average person. To add to the excitement of the building the tower, I played this music in the background (after being inspired by my Thursday night #sstlap Twitter group to add more music to my classroom.)
*** In the dictatorship station, the dictator could send students to the corner for no reason whatsoever.
Lastly, I've been dipping my toes in Whole Brain Teaching and would love any feedback/suggestions middle school teachers have about implementing it in the classroom.
So, as the year is nearing a close (21 days and counting, not that I'm counting:)) I'm going full tilt. I'm throwing my best at them and we are loving it!
In my 7th grade, I just finished up a totally fun PBL on Athens and Sparta. Here's the explanation and info.
Here's the launch video:
First I explained to the kids what a real estate agent was and what their assignment would be. Their first activity was to become experts in what daily life was like in Atens and Rome for various family members. We considered this the orientation phase. It consisted of textbook reading, studying the fabulous information provided by the British Museum and some fun and informative Horrible Histories videos.
In phase 2, students were then assigned a family that consisted of a father, mother, son, daughter, and slave. There were two possibilities for each family member; a person who would fit in Sparta and one that would be a perfect fit for Athens.
To randomly choose the family and really add to the problem solving, each member was chosen randomly, using this awesome app called Decide Now!
Using my fabulous Apple TV, I projected my iPad and each family member was chosen randomly for each group. Students then, had to pick the best vacation spot for each family based on the largest amount of family members they made happy.
Once they figured out where they should live based upon majority, realty groups needed to make a pitch presentation that only focused on what would make each person happy about their new vacation destination. Students could use Google Prentation or Pow Toon to make their pitches. First I launched the third and final phase of the project with my own Powtoon video.
Then they made their own!
The kids absolutely loved this project and totally became experts on Athens and Sparta. They also got to work on their argument skills so that is always a plus. If you are interested in doing this in your own class, click here for all the resources. Make a copy for yourself and feel free to modify. I would love to hear from you if you use it in your class!
Two blog posts in two nights!!!! My budget is done and graduation practice starts tomorrow.... Stick a fork in me because the end is nigh.
Like most middle school teachers, I love to end the year with something very interactive. For those of you that don't teach middle school, just close your eyes and imagine why you don't teach middle school. Now multiply it by 12. That is what we eighth grade teachers call June.
Usually I end with the kiddos making plays or videos about the various groups that went west, but I decided to abbreviate my Manifest Destiny and add in a unit on Social Reformers. I didn't have time for plays so I went in my way back machine and pulled out an old favorite machine. They're called tableaux (defined as an interlude during a scene when all the performers on stage freeze in position and then resume action as before.) or living monuments. Students have to convey information through a single staged scene with no words. They are encouraged to use props, signs and we also use Google Presentation to create backgrounds for our monuments.
The above are backgrounds one of my groups made for Frederick Douglass. They made the train he was on when he escaped slavery, a crowd he spoke to, and his newspaper.
The project was perfect!!!! The kids told me they had a blast and it was a great way to keep them on track for the end of the year.
If you are interests in the project, feel free to wander on over to Teachers Pay Teachers and you can buy the project there. It comes with rubrics and research graphics organizers.
What do you do at the end of the year to keep your kids engaged?
It's Friday night and oh my..... I deserve a weekend! This week was one of those where the kids were AMAZING but the job was stressful. I have certainly earned some blogging time, some Netflix and a glass (or two) of wine!
As I've mentioned in past posts, I just finished a huge unit on foreign policy. Although we don't actually have the History Alive! Series at my school, through the wonders of technology, I have stumbled upon all the resources online. I used this unit last year and this year I really owned it, reworked it and put my spin on it. The unit presents students with a foreign policy dilemma for the first five presidents. Students are given four different scenarios to choose from as they consider how they would have acted if they were president. Students work in groups and once they decide how they would have reacted they are to complete a processing activity. The book has them protesting in front of the White House for every dilemma and although I loved the idea, last year the kids got bored of the protest quickly. So here is what I did:
1. Dilemma 1: What should John Adams do about the French and the XYZ Affair?
Using my cheap whiteboards, the kids had to come up with a slogan that they would chant at a protest rally. I told them that at the rally they would be interviewed by the press and would have to tell the reporter what they think John Adams should do and why he should do it. I gave it a CCSS flare by telling them for their reason they had to cite textual evidence. I projected the White House onto the Smartboard, split the class in half and interviewed them. They looooved it! One kid told me it was his favorite lesson all year. My favorite slogan was, "Don't hate....negotiate!" I videotaped all the segments so I could make a full foreign policy movie at the end of the unit.
2. Dilemma #2: What should Thomas Jefferson do about the Barbary Pirates?
The kids had the same directions and options but instead they had to make 30 second commercials urging the president to listen to their foreign policy advice. I used iMovie to put all these movies together, with the protest and showed the whole thing at the end. I would show you these but I'm really a stickler of showing my kids' faces. Take my word for it..... They are hysterical!
3. Dilemma 3: What should James Madison do about the British impressing our soldiers?
This time, the kiddos took part in an analog Twitter conversation. As a group, the kids came up with a Twitter handle and hashtag that would explain their stance on involvement with the British. They then wrote a Tweet about their opinions. After this, each student was given three sticky notes. They had to comment on the group before them, the group after them and a group of their choice. They had to agree or disagree using textual evidence.
This really turned out to be a great way to process. They were able to work together and then process individually. After we did this I felt like is till needed to spend some time on the War of 1812 so I showed the kiddos this.....
OMG..... The kids giggled all thought this. To show them how perspective plays a major role in the story of us, I showed them this....
They loooooved this!
4. Dilemma 4: What should James Madison do about the new Latin American countries?
For this, I tried my hand at Philosophical Chairs and I was so proud of my kiddos. I had four corners of the classroom, one for each option they could choose from. They each went to the corner and started to defend their cases with textual evidence. Whenever they stopped believing with their side, they were able to move to a new corner. For the first time, I though this went so well. I can't wait to use it in other debates as well. I love the simplicity of it and the lack of set up. The kids loved that I let them sit on the desk. It's the simple things:)
All in all, it was one of those units that you poured your blood and soul into and in the end it returned the feeling threefold. And of course, there was this......
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