We survived week one!

Boy am I tired and this was a three day work week!  Getting back into the swing of things is always tiring, but I have loved getting to meet my new students this week.  I spent a lot of time this week on getting my students used to routines and procedures that we would use all year.  I didn't spend time with the minor details, such as when to sharpen your pencil or how to label your papers.  To me these things are not very significant.  I know many teachers are particular about these minute details, but I am more concerned with procedures that will have a lasting effect on their learning.  Cornell notes and Costa's levels of questioning filled our class time this week because I know in the long run that these things will benefit them more!

So here's to a good weekend of relaxing, reading, spending time with my family, and oh, yeah planning for next week.  

Deep thinking leads to deeper learning

Over the summer I attended the AVID summer institute.  It was by far the best professional development training I have ever attended.  One of the main focuses of AVID is using Cornell notes.  I am proud to say I used Cornell notes on day 1!!!  My direction instruction was a mini-lesson on voice and point of view.  The students completed the notes section in class and the questions section at home.  I gave the students a list of possible level one, level two, and level three questions, based on Costa's levels of questioning.  I purposely gave them very little instruction on how to write these leveled questions.  I wanted to know what they could do on their own.  Today, I had the students copy their questions onto sticky notes and place them according to the level of the question.  Next, I read the questions out to the class and we analyzed the questions for two aspects:  1.  Was the question placed within the correct level? 2.  Did the question make sense and correlate to the notes?

This activity allowed me an opportunity to see where my students were successful and where they might need some help.  The general consensus is we have level one down, but we still need to work more with writing level three questions.  This activity also gave the students a chance to hear examples from each level.

Kicking off the new school year

Today marks the beginning of my fourteenth year as a middle school teacher.  When I think about the fact that I have taught approximately 1300 students and that I have new batch of a hundred or so students this year, the enormity of my position and the responsibilities that come with it makes it even more important that I focus on remembering the successes from previous years  This year I hope to continue to focus on knowing my students and on growing a love of reading within my students.

In order to  accomplish my goal of getting to know my students today I had them create a list of adjectives to describe themselves.  The students then selected one of their adjectives and wrote it on an index card that they then decorated.  This activity took 15 minutes and as the students were working I was able to go around the room and visit with each student in order to begin to build a relationship with each of them.

Last year, I kept a record of what my students were reading and charted for others to see as well.  My students LOVED this and always wanted to know how close we were to meeting our goal.  I am doing the same thing this year.  My goal is for my students to read a total of 1200 books this year.  I can't wait to chart their progress.

Career day

Today we had career day at my school.  It was a great opportunity for my students to explore various careers.  They were able to hear about the mounted patrol unit, the fire department, a drama group from the local high school, a business rep from a local manufacture, an emergency room doctor, and a marketing director for a local credit union.  The students were well behaved, had great questions, and learned a lot.

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Words, Words, Words: How are we using vocabulary strategies?

In both my honors and my general classes we are currently reading a novel.  With my honors classes we are reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain and in my general classes we are reading Max the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick.  Both novels are rich in vocabulary and figures of speech.  Each week as we approach new vocabulary terms, we use a new strategy to help us understand the words.  So far we have created vocabulary maps, used context clues, created linear arrays, and played "I know it!".  Many of these ideas came from the following site:  http://www.fcrr.org/curriculum/PDF/G4-5/45VPartThree.pdf  .

Our most recent vocabulary activity required the use of dictionary/vocabulary cubes.  This activity did take some prep time.  I copied the cubes onto card stock, in order to make them more durable. I then used clear tape to hold them together.  To make it easy to distribute the materials I placed the cube and the word cards into a small Zip-lock bag.

The students worked with a partner, taking turns rolling the cube.  As the students rolled the cube they had to do the activity they rolled.  The possibilities were to determine the meaning, etymology, part of speech, pronunciation, synonyms and antonyms,  and to use the word in a sentence.    Overall, this activity went well, but next time, I would require the students to complete the meaning for every word.

Moving on up

I guess the name of my blog is no longer appropriate.  After a discussion with my principal last year I was moved to the eighth grade.  I am so excited about this change!  I loved my students last year and I am thrilled to be able to teach some of the same "little darlings" again this year.  I will say that I am spending a lot of time planning, since this is a new grade level.  Stay tuned for more adventures from my eighth grade ELA classroom.

100 Things I Love

Having a sense of community and truly knowing my students are very important aspects of my teaching philosophy.  My students are more than just students, they are my kids.  I love each of them and want the best for them.  With these thoughts in mind, I spend a great deal of time at the beginning of the school year learning about each of my students.  This year, I had my students make a list of 100 things they love. First, the students made a list of 100 things they loved.  They did this in their interactive notebook.  I plan to refer to these lists throughout the year for writing topics.  After the students completed their list they made a poster of their 100 things that they love.  Students were encouraged to be creative!  Some students wanted to use a website like taxgedo or wordle to create their poster.  I allowed them to do so, if they printed it at home.

  

I love the way the students' posters turned out! This is just a small sample of the great work the students created.  One thing I would do different next time is have the students make a list of 100 "favorite things"  instead of 100 things they "love".  Some of my students got stuck on the word "love", which made this assignment more difficult for them.  Once I explained that it could be favorite things, such as a favorite person, movie, song, food, etc.  They seemed to find this task much easier.