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.

The View from Saturday & Geography

I am super excited about starting a novel with my class.  Before we get into Reader's Workshop with self-selected books I am modeling how Reader's workshop will work. I'm using this whole class novel and modeling using sticky notes and responding to what we read each day.    Each day we have a mini-lesson on the elements of fiction.  So far it is going great and I am glad I started Reader's Workshop this way.

In social studies I just finished teaching The Five Themes of Geography. I made a great review game on the smart board that seemed to work well.  I will try to post it on here for anyone who wants to use it.  Everyone did great on the quiz today so I am very excited about how things are going so far.

Lessons from the first week

My first week of teaching flew by.   It was nothing like I expected it to be but awesome nonetheless.  What I once thought about teaching sixth graders was completely wrong.  I had this idea that because I know all kinds of behavior management strategies and am organized myself that my kids will be able to follow along with me.  The failure to even understand organization was my biggest surprise.  I required my students to have a 3 subject notebook for language arts in which they will keep daily grammar, reading and writing mini-lessons.  For social studies I required them to have 3 divider tabs for their binder so that they could put their bellringers, notes and assignments in their own place.  The other two tabs that they get in a pack were to be used for science and math.  Next year I think I will just require a binder for my own classes and have students keep everything for me in one binder.  I couldn't believe how hard it was for students to grasp that language arts grammar bellringers go in the language arts notebook, not the binder.  I am hoping that over time they will start to put things in the right place.

Another big surprise to me was how long it takes students to copy notes.  It seems like it takes them 5 minutes to copy one sentence.  I never have students take more notes than what would go on a simple anchor chart so it really shocked me at how much time we wasted while waiting on everyone to finish copying.  I think I will be providing guided notes for my students to glue into their language arts notebook and then fill in while we are going over it.

Overall, I had a great first week getting to know my students.  I think that they will be a great bunch and I am hoping that they learn as much as I have already learned from them!

Classroom Tour

My room is finally finished and I'm so glad because I have yet to write out my lesson plans for next week.   Here are just a few pictures of my favorite parts of the room.   

My reading area before I changed the bulletin board.

Reading area bulletin board.  It will be an interactive board where students can write
book recommendations on the fish for other students to look at.

This is the back of the room.  I have a small round table for conferencing with students.

I love the giraffe print border I found at All About Education.  One
side of the agenda will be for writing the daily objectives and the
other side will be for their homework.

The front of my desk

Next on my list of things to do is write out name tags for students to find where they are to seat, figure out a way to organize make up work and then start writing my lesson plans!  I'm so excited that the first day is right around the corner.  I will feel even better about it once everything is ready tomorrow afternoon.  I'm very thankful though that everyone at my school has been super helpful.  I really believe I chose the right school to teach at and can't wait to see what this school year will bring!

In The Middle

During my undergraduate reading course I was required to read a few chapters from the book "In the Middle" by Nancy Atwell.  I'm now reading the textbook over again to see what I can learn about teaching middle school language arts.  What I've taken from the book so far:



1) An idea to introduce students to the classroom is to provide a scavenger hunt of classroom supplies instead of just pointing them all out to them.

2) Require students to write a letter to me at least once a week about what they are reading and then reply back to them.  I will be making sure that each student has a one subject notebook for this purpose.

3) Nancy Atwell structure her daily schedule to include a writing workshop and a reading workshop everyday. I most likely won't have the time for both but I do like the idea of having word work as a bellringer, followed by a mini-lesson and then either a reading or writing workshop which I can alternate each day.   I also like how she emphasizes the importance of read alouds which I think I will end each day with.

4)  "In the Middle" offers many ideas for topics for mini-lessons.  Some suggestions for the beginning of year include:
 -Expectations for writing or reading
 -Conferring with peers: where, when, how
 -How to use an editing checklist for writing
 -Classroom literary resources
 -Procedures for booktalks
 -Setting goals for reading and writing

If anyone else has read "In the Middle" and used Atwell's approach I'd love to know how it has worked for you.