Calling all Interns & New Teachers!

Even though I have been teaching for 13 years now, I still remember burning the midnight oil during my internship, wondering if I could really do this teaching thing forever. I also remember my 4th day of teaching, when the Twin Towers fell on 9/11. I wondered how on earth I was supposed to help my precious 5th graders process the tragedy when I didn't know how to process it myself. And since then, I can recall at least a thousand other times I questioned my career choice, ability, and qualification. But at the end of the day, teaching is what I am passionate about. It's what I want to do. I will be the first to admit, however, that it's not easy. 

If you're just starting out in or thinking about entering the world of education, just know that although it's a very rewarding and enjoyable ( most days, in my opinion) career, it's not always easy. You will have days when you want to pull out your hair and days when you have more questions than answers. But the thing you need to remember is that you can do this. You're not alone. Ask others for help. Be confident. Yes, some lessons will absolutely suck, but there's always tomorrow. When you make a mistake-- notice I said 'when' and not 'if'-- figure out what you need to learn from it and try it again tomorrow. The kiddos in your class need you!

Below you will find a variety of resources to help you on this journey.  

Resources I Have Created

Co-teaching Pamphlet- click here
Plan that Lesson! Power Point- click here 
First Days of School Game Plan- click here 
Parent Conference Planning Sheet- click here
Best Practice for Teaching Active Kids video

Introductory Video to Microsoft OneNote

  

Resources I Have Gathered From The Web

Proven Classroom Management video
      (it specifies middle school, but useful for all teachers)

 
"What if Everything You Knew About Disciplining Kids Is Wrong?" Article
      Presents a different view on disciplining. click here 

"20 Tidbits for New Teachers" Article (via Edutopia)- click here

"Common Core Math Cheat Sheets"- click here

English Language Learners: Culture, Equity and Language video

  

Teaching Summaries with Jimmy Fallon

Okay, so I knew I'd get your attention with that title. And yes, I did [just this past week] use a Jimmy Fallon clip to teach writing summaries. Before we get to Jimmy though, let me walk you through the other parts of the introduction lesson.

Introduction to Writing Summaries
By nature, kids just have this way of including every unnecessary and pointless detail when they are writing summaries. After having one too many students tell me that the "character woke up", "the character went out the door", and "the character was sad", I knew I had to do something to keep my sanity. So, I introduced the 5-sentence summary. Yes, an entire book in 5 sentences. Yes, it drives the kids crazy and the parents even crazier, but before long the limitation of only 5 sentences really helps them to start picking only the most important details. Here's a free handy dandy resource, with a sample summary.

Before introducing this resource, I show the kids the short animated movie called Pigeon: Impossible. After watching it, I give them a HORRIBLE summary of it. By the end, they were begging me to stop. I then have them help me by telling me what should be in a good summary. (Because they're 5th graders, they have had exposure before.) I record their suggestions on an anchor chart. I make sure to emphasize that summaries only include the most important details from the beginning, middle, and end.To end the lesson, I give them a "good" summary of the movie by using their suggestions.

 

The next day we start by reviewing what makes a good summary. I make sure to lead the conversation to the point that summaries are much shorter than the original. As a great motivation/hook, I tell the kids that even Jimmy Fallon knows how to write a summary:) In fact, he's so good, that he can do it in 5 seconds! We all know that Jimmy likes to play games with his famous guests, and one of the games is "Five Second Summaries". The following clip is kid-friendly, appropriate, and even uses several movies kids know. 

 

 

And they loved the idea so much, that they begged to play our own version. They were even willing to work extra hard and work at writing summaries for nearly an hour to be rewarded with "Ms. G's Five Second Summaries"!

Of course this is just the beginning and much modeling is to follow, but I hope your kiddos enjoy this exciting introduction to writing summaries. 

 

Teacher Say the Weirdest Things-- Four Kinds of Sentences Review Game

Needless to say it's been nearly forever since I last did a blog entry. I'm not totally sure what happened. But never fear, I am back with a quick & simple review game activity that I think is just a little brilliant :)

While vegging a bit, I was browsing through Facebook when I came across a blog called "50 Strange Things Teachers Say". You can find the original blog here. Anyway, I was getting a chuckle reading the list when suddenly I had an idea. A brilliant, amazing idea. In grammar/writing my kiddos (5th graders) have just learned the four different kinds of sentences. We've been doing so much practice that as I was reading the weird things teachers say, I was automatically thinking about what kind of sentence each was. Knowing my kiddos would get a kick out of hearing the weird things teacher say, I decided it would be a great way to get them to practice the four different kinds of sentences. 

I turned a good number (26 to be exact) of the sayings into a power point review game. The game and presentation is simple. Each slide contains one of the sayings. It's the students job to tell which type of sentence it is. For the sayings with more than one sentence, they are prompted to give the kind for each sentence. I'm thinking that this will be great for a class-wide "Family Feud style" review game. It could also be used for an "every student response" activity with the use of personal whiteboards. I think my kiddos are going to love reading all of these weird things we say-- and they won't even realize they are doing so much practice :) You can find the review game here. 

Amazing Teacher Hack: Duct Tape for Bulletin Board Border

Over the weekend, I bought some fun fabric for my bulletin board, but didn't have any border to match and just couldn't bear to take yet another trip to the teacher store. I ran to Walmart, but alas, they didn't have any. Before leaving, I was enticed by the 3 for $9 sale on decorative duct tape, so I snagged three rolls even though I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them. Today I was procrastinating from doing any "real" planning by decorating my room. The border-less bulletin board was bugging me, so I grabbed the roll of gold duct tape I bought. It was rather easy and looks great. I also used it to "edge" my calendar so that it would match.

Blogging Mini-Unit

As teachers are beginning to head back to school, we are all looking for new ideas and activities to implement this school year. I've read several blogs and posts about folks wondering how other teachers use blogging in their classroom. I taught and used blogs in my classroom last year, and a few teachers have asked me to share the activities and lessons I did for my "blogging mini-unit". Here you go. Feel free to use and tweak my ideas, as well as add your own activities suggestions and ideas below. 


The following activities and lessons were not necessarily designed/created by me, although I did tweak them to meet the needs of my classroom. I will gladly give credit for ideas/activities when I can.

Lesson/Activity #1: I started off by asking students about the social media/technology they use. After several answers, we moved the discussion to "why" people today use this technology. I used both discussions to transition to a conversation about blogs (ex. what are they, why people write them, how they differ from Facebook, Twitter, etc.). After getting a good idea of students' background knowledge of blogs and giving basics about blogs (ex. what they are & why they are used), we headed to the computer and checked out some blogs. I had students work in groups of three or four and check out several different blogs online. Ahead of time, I pre-selected and saved short-cuts to several different "kid appropriate" blogs. Groups were allowed to look at the blogs (from the ones I chose) that they wanted. Their task was to write down characteristics of effective blogs. (From the beginning I chose to use the words "effective" & "ineffective" instead of "good" & "bad".) After about 20 minutes, we came back together as a class and wrote down the characteristics they found. By the end of the class, we had a list of characteristics that make an effective blog. Here's a rubric that has the main characteristics on the left side of the chart. Not only did we ultimately use this rubric to "grade" blogs we looked at online, but I used it to assess/grade the blogs they wrote throughout the year. The rubric I used can be found here. Another possible rubric (made by Scholastic and includes an activity) can be found here.

Lesson/Activity #2: As a class we started by looking at a blog together. Students took turns points out things that either made it effective or ineffective. We also watched a short video on YouTube about why middle school students like about blogging. Find the YouTube video here. 

Lesson/Activity #3: A huge component of teaching kids blogging, is to make sure they do it safely and respectfully. I started the "safety" lesson by asking students general rules for being/going online and while using social media. For the most part, they gave nearly all of the rules that needed to be given. I recorded rules they gave me on the board. After class I put the rules on a poster that hung in the classroom for the rest of the year and also made a hand-out of the rules for students. Here's an example of some possible rules from Scholastic. 

Lesson/Activity #4: One of the characteristics of a blog is that it is used to cultivate discussions among readers and reviewers. Before students can be expected to respond effectively and appropriately to blogs, they need some instruction on the topic. I found a few different YouTube videos that I used. I really like the first one-- it's made my elementary students and provides clear instruction and examples. Find it here. The second video is super short, and I used it has a review on another day. Find this second video here. I also put together a resource sheet for students to use. Find the resource here.  

Lesson/Activity #5: Before setting students loose to write and comment online, we did "paper blogging". This fabulous idea is from the blog "Notes from McTeach" dated September 5, 20120, and titled "Learning to Blog Using Paper". Find this amazing activity here. This activity gives students the opportunity to apply everything they have learned so far. They used the Blogging Rubric and Responding to Blogging resource to make sure that they included all of the components. We did this activity over a couple of days. They really did a good job with it and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Lesson/Activity #6: It was finally time to take the blogging online. Although there are several different blogging options available for students and classrooms, I chose to use Edmodo. The majority of my students already had some experience with Edmodo and the platform worked best for my classes. (Here's a link to Edmodo in case you need it.) For their first blog, I basically gave them the same prompt as from the "paper blogging" activity, I just told them to pick a different hobby. They completed all of the steps (rough draft, editing, revising, etc.) of writing. They typed their final drafts on Word and then copied and pasted them on to the page I set up on Edmodo. Students also had to leave meaningful comments on at least two of their classmates' blogs. It turns out that they really enjoyed reading each others' blogs-- I think they ended up reading and commenting for nearly a whole class period. It was a wonderful way to trick them into reading and writing! :)

Year-long practice and use: After learning and practicing the basics of blogging, it became a very useful tool for discussing stories, novels, and even skills throughout the year. When my small groups were working on different novels, I had an Edmodo page for each novel. I'd post questions and they'd reply either at home or during independent work time. I also found it useful for students who missed in-class discussions due to being absent. I simply posted the discussion questions on Edmodo and they responded to them so I still had a chance to assess their comprehension and understanding. Towards the end of the year Edmodo was also a useful classroom for incorporating "flipped classroom" strategies. For example, while doing theme, I posted a movie clip on Edmodo, and they needed to respond with what they thought the theme was and "text/clip" evidence.

Teachers need to eat- Easy Mediterranean Pasta with Chicken

Looks delicious, right?? And trust me, it's super easy. Today is a Friday at the end of a very long week and the second to last day of school. It was a long half day of packing and managing my students (they named themselves my "little minions") moving my classroom from downstairs to upstairs. Afterwards, we went out for a late lunch as a staff. A few of us then went back to school (I know, a glutton for punishment) to organize and put report cards in student folders.   

So around 8pm this evening, I was hungry for something light & yummy, yet super easy to make because I barely had enough energy to get myself off the couch, let alone enough to do any 'real' cooking. I ended up grabbing some Mediterranean type veggies from the fridge, pre-made basil pesto, whole grain breaded chicken fingers, some feta and tossed it all with some pasta. It totally fit the bill! Yummy and WAY easy.  

I'm sure there are tons of variations that you can create based on your tastes and what you have on hand. Also, the quantities of ingredients will depend on how many servings you want to make. I made just enough for me, although I ended up with two servings.  

Ingredients:
- Frozen chicken tenders
- Pasta
- Sun-dried tomatoes
- Marinated artichoke hearts
- Kalamata olives
- Capers
- Feta cheese
- Basil Pesto

How to make:

1. Cook the chicken tenders and pasta according to the directions on the package.

2. Cut up the veggies you are using. I used sun-dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, capers, and kalamata olives. 

3. Toss the vegetables, basil pesto, and chicken with the pasta.

4. Sprinkle with feta cheese.

Enjoy this simple and delicious meal!

Quotation Marks Antics

Throughout the year my students have really strengthened their writing. Their ideas are growing by leaps and bounds, and their grammar, structure, and organization is also improving. The one thing that continues to plague them, even my best writers, is consistently using and formatting dialogue properly. Why is it that students find using quotation marks correctly so difficult? This week I was feeling ambitious, so I decided to tackle it. 

Here are a few activities and things I tried with my kiddos. Feel free to give them a try and let me know how they work out. I also welcome any other ideas you have.

1. I started by telling my kiddos that I wrote a story and wanted their opinion. I displayed the story on the smart board. It was a story that contained lots of dialogue, but no quotations marks or proper punctuation or formatting. They quickly identified what the problem was. As a class, we went through and they edited it together. 
2. Next it was time for some buddy practice and reteaching opportunities for those who needed it. I found a wonderful FREE resource by Kristine Nannini on teacherspayteachers.com. Here's the link to the wonderful resource. Thanks Kristine! It provides great hands-on practice with a little scaffolding built in! As they worked in pairs, I floated around the room and gave assistance as needed, and also pulled a small reteach group for a few friends that were really struggling.
3. Time to apply the skill to writing. I gave students the choice of either working in pairs or working independently. Most chose to work with a friend. I then posted three pictures for students to choose from.
   
   
   
   
 

 

Their assignment was to write a short story that included dialogue between the two animals. I told them that of course it would be funny, but they just needed to be sure to write and format the dialogue correctly. They really enjoyed this activity and came up with some great conversations.

4. Independent Practice: Due to the way our schedule worked out, they ended up doing this part a few days later, so it really was a good indication of how much they remembered and could actually apply the skill in their writing. I posted one more picture, and instructed them to write a story (that included dialogue) based on the picture. They got a real hoot out of the picture and came up with some really creative and truly good stories :) And amazingly, they did a really good job writing their dialogue correctly!

 

Picture credits:Snake & bird- http://www.flickr.com/photos/djphoenix18/3988720849/in/pool-1914019@N23/ Cat & mouse- http://pets.onas.ru/cat_mouse_strawberry_1.jpg.html Ant & Snail- http://www.zmescience.com/science/biology/ant-snail-amazing-picture-27062011/ Jedi Squirrels- http://500px.com/photo/1976424/jedi-squirrels-by-mark-white