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

Summer Inspirations: Week 1

Hey all!  I promised and my challenge to myself is to keep this up all summer long!  These books, accounts, and blogs can inspire you to kick it up a notch in your classroom next year... by the way, did I mention I'm not done till June 29th?!?! 9 snow days don't seem so fun now!!! 

If you have any suggestions for this Summer Inspiration list, enter it in the Form at the bottom of the post (You do not need to fill out the whole thing... just the stuff you want to suggest!)

Ron Clark Academy

@mrmatera #XPlap

Google Teacher Tribe Podcast

Ditch That Textbook

Hope and Wade King

Teach Like a Pirate

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

We saved Egypt! A Quest into Gamification

Hey, all!  I am so sorry it has been so long since I wrote.  This semester I got an amazing opportunity to start teaching a graduate class.  I am teaching this fabulous class called, “Creating a Technology-Rich Classroom. It is such a blast to teach but it has definitely taken over my blogging time!

Things have been fabulous in my class lately.  Around the holidays, I delved deeper into my fascination with all things PIRATE (read Dave Burgesses’ Teach Like a Pirate and you will understand!) and read Explore Like a PIRATE: Gamification and Game-Inspired Course Design to Engage, Enrich and Elevate Your Learners.  Michael Matera is an amazing middle school teacher who has entirely gamified his classroom.  In his class students go on quests to learn new topics and solve problems.  I tried to do a Rome Quest last year and was minimally successful.  After reading this I decided to go all in and create a quest for Egypt.

Step 1: I came up with my backstory.  To get the kids hooked you need a reason to “quest”.  I created this video using PowerPoint and iMovie to launch the story.

I set up a locker for each of my classes like this:

Inside each locker was this:

I set all this up before the launch of the activity to build excitement.

Step 2: I organized all the assignments I wanted them to complete for the unit and assigned XP (experience points) to them based on how much effort they each took.

I created placards that explained the assignments so the kids could complete them independently and at their own pace.

If you look at the assignment sheet you will see a whole area of assignments called sidequests.  Michael Matera does an amazing job outlining them in his book so definitely GO BUY IT!  It is a perfect summer read.

In a nutshell, though a sidequest is an "extra" activity.  These activities do not have to be completed but they do make the quest progress quickly.  For me, these assignments are awesome guided and independent activities that allow your students to delve deeper into topics.  This is a perfect way to differentiate for your high flyers!

Step 3:  I placed the kids onto four teams.  Each team was named after a major Egyptian god.  Each team was assigned one of the locked locks on the locker.  This lock had a three-digit number as a combination.  The object of the game was to solve puzzles to find the numbers to unlock the lock.   This is where things get tricky but this year I got a handle on it with a little help from my internet buddies.

The goal of the game is to earn XP.  As each person earned XP, they moved up the ranks of Egyptian society from slave to pharaoh.  When a team earned an average of 425 XP they got to go on a clue quest and solve a puzzle to learn the first number.  We considered this "clearing gate 1".  This repeated for two more  gates until they had all three numbers and could open their lock.

Last year when I tried this, the amount of scorekeeping and data that was needed to be managed was way too overwhelming.  I spent my year investigating easier ways and I finally stumbled upon a genius that created a spreadsheet for tracking in Google Spreadsheets and Forms.  

With this sheet, I was able to wrangle all the information, project on the board, and let the kids see where they stood!

Students listed by XP earned

Alphabetical list of students, Total XP, Level, and Guild

Full Chart

Total XP earned by each guild

This is what I used to progress guilds to gates.  When their average was 425, they were able to go on their first clue quest to open Gate 1 and receive their first number.

Seriously, this entire spreadsheet saved my life and made this an enjoyable experience!

Step 4: I created the Clue Quests to clear each gate.  These were fun!  If you really love solving puzzles look on over to BreakoutEDU.  It is an amazing resource and community for educators creating fabulous puzzles to challenge their students.  I have large classes, so I decided to incorporate some of the themes into this activity.

Once each group (guild in the spreadsheet) earned an average of 425 XP they received this:

The QR code led to a question, the answer to the question was the password to unlock a website that brought them to their first number.

On the next gate they received this:

Once they solved the puzzle it brought them to an activity in the hallway where their number was hidden.

The last gate involved invisible ink and a UV pen!

The kids absolutely loooooooooved this activity.  I got about 95% completion of all the activities and total buy-in from the kids.  When they opened their locks and earned their day out both classes cheered!  I was able to accommodate for my struggling learners as they approached each activity and I was able to push my high flyers who started to compete with each other to see how many side quests they could do.  I can't wait to do it again and I'm already working on one for my American Revolution unit that focuses on the Culper Spy Ring!

A Big Bucket of Fabric

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!!!

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!!!

I'm Getting STEMmy: Building Aqueducts

Join me on my journey to engagement (and get a freebie to boot!)

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.

I can't wait to do this again!!!