Anchor's Away!

Today was a required teacher workday in which we spent most of the day in meetings. However, one workshop including a chance for us to make anchor charts for our classroom. Here are a couple that I made and have already put up in my room.

I try to teach my students to summarize in 10 words or less, as normally that is the type of summaries seen on the EOG.  It also helps for them to really find the main idea of the story.

I love the Frayer Model for understanding vocabulary words.  This strategy works particularly well with content areas.

One Quarter Down, Three to go

It is hard to believe that I have already finished the first quarter of the school year.  I have learned so much already that I could never have been taught in college.  I'm looking forward to the start of a new quarter by changing a few of my management strategies.  One thing I started doing at the end of the last quarter was having a fun activity on Friday's that only the students who did their homework all week were allowed to participate in.  It was amazing how fast students would start turning in work when they knew they wouldn't be able to participate.  After studying writing in Mesopotamia I had students make clay tablets using the cuneiform alphabet.  They really enjoyed making these and the students who didn't get to participate magically found the motivation to turn in their homework the next week.






These clay tablets are super easy to make.  All you need is 4 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt and 1 cup of water.  Mix it all together and mold it into dough form.

I had my students use toothpicks to write on the clay with.  We then let them dry on my back table for the weekend.


Another thing I'm looking forward to trying is Class Dojo. It's an online behavior management system. I will post more about it once I have tried it with my students.

Venting Tuesday

I have been so overwhelmed lately that I haven't had a chance to post anything. I'm going to try to get better though because I was told that these posts would be great to print for my Professional Development Plan.  I will, however, be selective in which ones I choose to put in my portfolio.  This post will not be one of those posts, as I'm calling today Venting Tuesday.  Here are some cute cartoons I found that show my frustrations of the week so far.

I haven't seen a day without a paper jam.

Catching my sixth graders text in class is becoming a little ridiculous.