I'm baaaack! :]

What did I tell you?  It would take a bit of effort to keep me updating this blog on a regular basis.  It's been two months, and here I am again.

All of a sudden, summer was gone, the weeks to the start of school were getting fewer, and I was still trying to organize my thoughts for planning.  Now with a week and a half under my belt, I feel like I'm back in the groove of things, so I planned some time to blog. YAY :]

 First, I created my theme for my classroom -- MOVIES.  Every kid loves movies, right? My room is sprinkled with movie posters, all of them relating to a novel or book choice. We have popcorn, tickets, and lots more around to enhance the theme. I even bought a red chair from Walmart and painted a yellow star on it for a director's chair.  It's a very stimulated room, but so far, it's been a hit! Hopefully, I will be able to change my boards and still keep my theme.   These pictures are from the start of summer; I will have to take pictures of it now, so you can see the whole room! :]

So far, I have done very little of content teaching.  Thanks to A Teacher's Treasure I've been trying to implement the S.T.A.R. interactive notebook.  The interactive notebook with tons organizing and note-taking skills.  I personally love it.  I messed with it during the summer and have hopefully found a procedure that works.  I've even convinced another teacher at school to use it too. It's been a hit or a miss with the kids.  It's a VERY new concept for them, and a lot of them aren't so great with change...even if it's at the beginning of the year.  I told them to give it a grading period, and we will evaluate it then.  I've taught how to take notes and the fun times that go with that, and most of them have caught on very quickly.  They had a ball decorating their covers and even creating their first reflection.  I have a strange hunch that this will become second nature to them, and they'll love it too.

Lastly, I've started a few new things this year.  I found scratch-off tickets from Simply 2nd Resources thanks to pinterest.  I was a bit hesitant that this was going to be a  bigger project than it looks, but it worked really well! The instructions were easy to follow, but the color was so thin that it had to be coated over at least 4 times to hide the prize underneath.  I think these are going to be extra incentives when we play review games or have interactive bulletin boards.  I'm excited for the kids to see them.

I think that's caught up enough.  We will see how this week smoothly goes.  I am trying to coordinate Race for the Cure team sign ups and set up my blogs this week.  I'll clue you in on KidBlog and Clash of the Classes next blog.  :]

Activities That Worked This Past Year

I'd like to remember some activities for next year and share the love for the taking.

My review game that I am most proud of is my Angry Birds game.  Kids are still talking about playing Angry Birds on their phones and computer, and I was inspired by this from Pinterest and put my own spin on it.  I bought small clear Dixie cups and Angry Bird cat toys from Walmart.  I stacked the cups into various shapes of pyramids with different amounts of cups in stations around the room.  If you do this, be aware that flying Angry Birds can't hurt anything around it.  At each station was a set of questions, usually around 4 or 5.  Partners would go to stations with a paper in hand (these two students would be going against each other). They would record the answers to their questions on the paper, and when both are finished, I included the answers in an envelope.  They would check their answers and score appropriately.  For every correct answer, the student would get that many throws to try to knock down the pyramid of cups.  At the end of their turn, the number of cups knocked down turned into their points.  Then, the partner would go and count his points.  The pair would venture around the stations, reviewing and having fun.  When time was called, the partner with the most points "won."  The kids LOVED it and asked to do it for every review opportunity. It takes a bit of set-up, but you get to walk around while the students do all the work. :]
 

Spelling Battleship - One activity I use to review spelling words is Battleship.  I found a Battleship grid online - you can just Google it and many teachers have posted theirs.  Depending on how many words you have, you can adjust the amount of spaces.  I think mine was a 5x6 grid I made on Excel. We have 20 words a week, so I had the students pick 10 words and write one word in a square - just like in Battleship - in whatever squares they wanted.  The students would pick an opponent and place an "office" folder in between them.  If your opponent hit a square, they would have to spell the word correctly to get a point for it.  Half of the joy for them was just finding the word!  A smart way to keep from saving paper is to print off one set of Battleship grids and use sheet protectors or overhead paper with dry erase markers.  This way you can keep one set and use for all of your classes.  Here are some picture of my kiddos playing!

Medieval Legends - The last part of the 7th grade year I was at a loss of what to do.  I found some cool King Arthur stories in the textbook, so we studied the structure of legends and characteristics of heroes.  At the end of the unit, the students had to write their own legends, mixing history with fantasty, and creating a hero with all of the traditional characteristics.  I went to JoAnns craft store and found foam swords, shields, merlin hat/cape, and princess hats. The scripts they wrote were impressive, and many of the groups decided to add costumes of their own to present.  They had a ball!

8th Grade Gift - This past 8th grade was a very special class to me.  They were my first class when I student taught, and as a class, and school, we went through some tough times together.  I felt that I couldn't let them leave without SOMETHING.  I noticed that they didn't have any yearbook to pass around at the end of the year for signatures.  That was my favorite part about the last few days of school.  I could get the little notes from my friends and teachers, so I came up with an idea for them.  I bought each of them a notebook.  I typed their name on a label for the front.  On the inside front cover, I typed meaningful quotes from the novels we have read together - "Stay gold, Ponyboy, stay gold." etc. etc. On the back page, I made a sticker out of a picture of their homeroom from their 8th grade class trip and signed each of them with my own message. I was astounded by how much they appreciated it.  During the last few days, some of them stayed in from morning recess and were exchanging notebooks to sign.  Many of the teachers jokingly got on me because they were being asked to sign the kids' notebooks.  I loved making them, and I think they will remember our school and their class. :]

 





Yay for last year, and here's to looking towards the next! Please leave some love on these ideas, or let me know if you have any questions! :]
Loves,
Maria <3

Feeling a bit frustrated...

I've been searching my brain for my classroom decoration for next year.  I have four bulletin boards, and last year I changed them every quarter. They had colorful paper, border, and related classroom material on them.  My only complaint is that it didn't connect to make one room.  I felt with the different colors and ideas that it made it separate areas of a room, not connecting it in fluidity like I want.  I am tossing around the idea of creating a classroom theme for my room next year, but my only problem is that I teach MS.  Is it too young to still keep a theme for my classroom?  Now, I'm not thinking bumblebees or ocean but more "adult"-like ideas.


I took to the internet to see what other teachers do.  I know in my school not one MS teacher has an ongoing theme--not even a color theme, I don't think.  The internet is a wonderful tool, because just by googling pictures I see classroom from across the country. One thing is always lacking...COLOR!  I hopped onto the forum at atozteacherstuff.com --which I LOVE!-- and they had comments from MS teachers and their classrooms.  Many of them said they had just motivational posters and student work. REALLY?? Some of them even argued that having anything more is "distracting". PAH! With what few bulletin boards I had, the kids always noticed them, read them, and discussed them.  Now, not in the middle of class, but when entering and leaving, it was a cool discussion point that they had among themselves.  What did the saying mean?  What words can you find in this Boggle? It frustrates me that teachers aren't putting up color and connected material in a creative way because they think it HINDERS students.  Call me young and green, but I cannot let my classroom be blank and bare. Maybe that's the difference here -- my age. Who knows.


Do any of you teach MS?  What decor do you have in a classroom? Would a theme still be suitable for MS students?


Loves,
Maria <3

My First Post! :]

I have been addicted to teaching blogs through lovely Pinterest and thought, "Hey! I can do that!" So here I am, trying to make this a worthwhile blog for myself and others.  My problem will DEFINITELY be updating this blog.  I have a hard time keeping up on new ideas - I'm not going to lie - so posting my tasks from school and ideas will hopefully be bountiful and not become scarce as the school year starts. 

For myself, to start this summer, I have to figure out what needs to be disregarded, tweaked, or added next year. Let's think...

Disregard

The Pigman (in general)

Final project for The Giver

Tweak

Snapshot project

Time spent on poetry

Classroom library management

Literary Contrasts timeline

Medieval stories

Add

Clash of the Classes (YAY!! :])

Interactive Notebooks (double yay! :]])

Lottery tickets for incentives

 Pinterest completely consumes me.  It's amazing how addicting looking through ideas I will probably never use actually gets! Maybe I should pick a few to actually try to implement - especially for school - through this summer.

    

Well, the good thing is I have all summer to figure out what I'm going to do with my classroom next year.  I want a theme, whether idea or colors, for my room next year.  I'll be posting things I did in class that I need to remember next year, so it won't get lost in my madness of organization.  What a productive first post!  Yay!

Loves, 

Maria

(I need to get those cool graphics for a header and signature. :] I'll just have to leave you with my dogs. Haha)