A look into my classroom...

I have been wanting to post this for a while but have struggled finding the time. I must admit, a part of me has been very nervous to show off my classroom for fear of having to pack it right back up and be transferred to another school. I have had a taste of heaven teaching at my current school and I do not want to jinx it. However, as the dust settles, I finally felt confident enough to finish unpacking (I know! Took me long enough) my trunk in December. There are quite a few boxes in my classroom that still need unpacking though, care to come help out?

There are quite a few things I want to show off from my classroom but alas, I have not taken pictures of everything (oops!).

The first area I would like to show off is the designated hall pass area right beside my door. These hall passes were featured in a previous entry. I am quite proud of these little guys. However, I often wonder if the appeal of these hall passes make students "need" to go to the bathroom more frequently. 

The next area is my whiteboard. Can I please just go on for a few minutes about how excited I am to have an actual white board? My last classroom featured ONE shower board as my "whiteboard" and half of it was covered by my Smart Board. In this classroom, not only do I have a separate Smart Board area, but I also have FOUR white boards. Shut the front door. I am in heaven. HEAVEN I tell you. So, I have an amazing area in which I can grid off 5 sections for my students. 

The five sections I have gridded off are: Bell Ringer, Agenda, Reminders, Learning Target, and an Essential Question. I prefer to call it a "driving question" in my classroom. The above 5 laminated labels are the ones I created for my amazing Language Arts teacher on my team. Anyway, the bell ringer is a little area in which students have a quick review question to get them situated and ready for class to begin. The agenda is were I feature what we are doing that day, homework, etc. Reminders is just what it says, reminding students of important details...such as this:

Finally, the Learning Target and Essential/Driving Question areas are my favorite. The learning target is where I feature the topics/information I want students to be able to learn by the time the lesson or unit is over. I write these in "I can" statements. The driving question is the main question I want students to be able to answer after we have completed the unit. 

I bought these cute little boxes at Target to hold my erasers and markers. I am very excited that this real whiteboard is magnetic. Like I said, the one I had before was shower board and it did not work! The cute mail trays in the back were featured in an earlier entry as well. I constructed those from USPS mail boxes, duct taper, Modge Podge, and scrapbook paper. 

Here is my "No Name" board which is featured in a previous entry as well.

I find myself surrounded by WVU fans and I must represent Marshall as much as possible. Needless to say, this year has been a great year to be a HERD fan ;) 

Well, that's my classroom thus far. Stay tuned for an entry on Word Walls & QR Codes and how a Laminator and Cricut can change your life forever.

Instagram!

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted. It's not for lack of trying, the school year is just flying by! Recently, I have been teaching my students how to make observations and inferences using primary sources. It has taken a few weeks but my students are slowly starting to catch on and to be honest? I'm having a blast teaching it to them! Before the break, students were starting to get antsy. Hey, so was I, so can I really blame them? Anyway, due to my students' ever decreasing attention span, I wanted to incorporate something fun in my classroom to engage that students one last time before break. My students sort of inspired me by constantly creating #hashtags for the topics we were covering in history. So I decided why not use what they are interested in? Students are constantly discussing Instagram, Twitter, etc. I decided to use an Instagram template to allow students the opportunity to find primary sources and make inferences using #hashtags. Let's just say, the students had an absolute blast!

 Here is the template we started out with, which can be downloaded from my  TPT Store :)

Students downloaded this from our online classroom (Edmodo) and used Library of Congress (loc.gov) Or National Archives (archives.org) for their images. I originally was going to limit students to only creating an account and #hashtags for the Great Depression but I decided to let the students have some fun and do any historical event or person. Wow, they had a blast. However, there were so rules to my assignment, such as: username must be a person from that time period you are using, must be a historical event/person, must have one comment about the image, and must have at least 3 hashtags that can serve as inferences. I have posted some of my students' examples below for your viewing pleasure :)

Feel free to download and use my templates by clicking on the images above or visiting my TPT Store :)

Not a Teachers Pay Teachers Member? No problem! Click here and sign up for free! It is a great website in which you can download items for free or pay for items you really want/need. You can even create your own items and sell them! Make $$$$ for all that hard work you put in!

Anchor Charts!

The thing I have noticed my past two years of teaching 6th grade is that students struggle with writing in complete sentences and explaining their answers. This past year I would constantly remind students and reiterate tips for them to use when working on assignments. I promised myself that I would be make anchor charts for this upcoming school year and I finally did it this past weekend. I plan to make a few more and laminate them once I can get into my new school building. My intention is to display these various anchor charts around the room to help serve as a reminder for students when completing assignments!

I hope both of these posters will prove useful this year to my students! Sorry for such a short blog but I have been preparing for a workshop I am presenting next week and have had little time to craft items for my classroom!

May I re-do this, please?

As a teacher, I think it is crucial to reflect upon your lessons, teaching styles, and performances daily. I expect nothing less from my students. I expect my students to reflect upon their attitudes, work habits, and skills daily. I want my students to be reflective learners. I try to instill in my students a sense of ownership when they create a project or complete an assignment. I feel that if they take ownership of something they have created, they will put more time and pride into it. I am a sucker for letting students re-do assignments. Some educators look at me like I am crazy but hear me out before you arrive at that conclusion. Do I not get a chance to re-do something if it is less than stellar first period? Do I not have a chance to fix it by 5th period? Do I not have my off days? Why would a student be any different? Now, I am not saying students should make a habit of rushing through assignments and then expecting a re-do. I am saying that when a student does poorly or completely misses the mark but WANTS to re-do it and improve the assignment, why not give them that shot? I feel that my job is ensuring students master a specific skill or concept. If I have to allow students to work hard to improve their skills and then re-do the assignment, what is it really hurting? I take it as a teachable moment. I think it is a time to show students that when you make mistakes, you can get back up on the horse and try again. Still differ in opinion? Well, that's okay but you can feel free to check out my template and info below :)

I have decided this year that I am going to allow students to REQUEST permission for a re-do. Do I have to always grant it? No. The point is for students to reflect upon their work habits in and out of the classroom when completing assignments, studying, or working on projects. I will allow the students to the opportunity to complete the form below and then they will have to reflect upon the various activities they have used to improve the skill or concept previously tested or assigned. I will read their request and I will either grant or deny the student the opportunity for a re-do based upon what they have reflected and how honestly they have reflected about their previous performance. If I do grant them the opportunity to re-do an assignment or re-test a skill/concept, I will not use the same form of assessment. See? There's the rub. Yes, it is very easy to re-do an assignment if you just have to fix a few facts, numbers, and/or grammar mistakes. Instead, I will assign the student some other form of assessment. Will it be more work for me? Maybe in the beginning but isn't differentiating instruction and assessments what we are suppose to be doing in the first place? Yeah, I thought so. 

Feel free to download and use my templates by clicking on the images above or visiting my TPT Store :)
Not a Teachers Pay Teachers Member? No problem! Click here and sign up for free! It is a great website in which you can download items for free or pay for items you really want/need. You can even create your own items and sell them! Make $$$$ for all that hard work you put in!

Ticket out the door - Summarizing Strategies

Summarizing strategies can be a great way to get instant feedback and information from your students. There are quite a few things I do in my classroom. None of which are original but, hey, why reinvent the wheel when someone has already proved something will work? I like to use the Parking Lot strategy and I am currently creating my own Parking Lot poster board that I intend to laminate so I can re-use it every year. If you do not know what a Parking Lot is, please let me explain.


A Parking Lot is a designated space for students to reflect upon what they have learned, answer a question, or ask any questions they may have remaining after a lesson, activity, and/or discussion. This past year, I designated my classroom door as the parking lot and would give each student a post it note. I did not do this after every lesson because with 100 students, that would get pricey. However, after a specific discussion, I would use it as an informal assessment. I would give each student a post-it note and I would ask them to answer the driving (essential) question from class that day or I might ask them to pose a question they still have or just explain one thing they learned from the lesson, activity, and/or discussion. It was a great way to wrap-up a lesson. As students were finished and the bell was getting ready to ring, my students would place their post-it notes on the door. I would read them at the end of the day or in-between classes. It gave me the opportunity to see what students were thinking or the questions they still may have had. This upcoming school year, I am making a cute Parking Lot poster and I am going to laminate it so I don't have to use my classroom door or precious wall space. I am still working on this poster board and once it is finished, I promise to post it up here :)


Another exit strategy I used frequently was the "ticket out the door" approach. If I did not feel like peeling off  20+ post-its each class period, I would pass out my ticket template. I chose to do this template in black and white to save colored ink and I just print them off onto colored paper.

I do not always pass out the templates. Sometimes, I have the students jot something down on a scrap piece of paper and hand it to me on their way out. I use these templates whenever I feel like the kids need something new or colorful! My 6th graders loved these tickets. I would ask them to answer the driving question, write something they learned, or a question they still have on the ticket and then they would give it to me as they leave my classroom. This technique worked better at times than my parking lot since I teach 5 periods a day. It allowed me to keep the tickets separated by class period.


I also enjoy the 3-2-1 Pyramid strategy. I would often times have students draw this in their interactive notebooks (blog post to come soon about my notebooks!)

Using this strategy, students write 3 things they learned, 2 interesting facts, and 1 question they still have. You can use this strategy in other ways too. For example, you could ask students what are three functions of the US government, what are two roles of the US government, and 1 way we could improve the government or one question they still have, etc. The template I have placed in here is the template I use for my summarizing strategy at the end of a lesson, activity, and/or discussion. I do not always pass out the templates but they are great to use for students who may not draw the pyramid as quickly or students who need modifications. Sometimes it is just nice to give students something already made an in color!


Feel free to download and use my templates by clicking on the images above or visiting my TPT Store :)
Not a Teachers Pay Teachers Member? No problem! Click here and sign up for free! It is a great website in which you can download items for free or pay for items you really want/need. You can even create your own items and sell them! Make $$$$ for all that hard work you put in!

SPEEDING TICKET - Classroom Management Tool

Ever have that student those students who finish way too quickly and you know the second you look at their paper it is going to be wrong and not their best quality? Yeah, me too. I really struggled with this last year. I would have students who would not try their hardest and wanted to hurry through an assignment. Trust me, with a block schedule (80 minutes!), this was not a good situation to be in. For this upcoming school year, I wanted to create something that would discourage students from making a habit out of rushing through their work. I figured these students are speeding through their work so why not give them a ticket for doing so? I decided to create a speeding ticket to give to students and/or parents as a form of feedback and guidance.

As you can see, I have listed four reasons a student may receive a speeding ticket. This upcoming year, I plan to use these as a classroom management and feedback tool. I will check the box and give it to the student. The student will have to re-do the assignment. I have also modified the speeding ticket to include the need of a parent/guardian signature. I think these speeding tickets will be great to either give to a student you see rushing through an assignment or to attach to an assignment I have graded, require the parent/guardian signature, and have the student re-do the assignment. I like this idea because it holds the student accountable and let's them know I am not going to accept anything other than their best.


I use interactive notebooks (blog post soon to come!) and often times I have students who rush through the assignments in there or choose what they think is going to be the "quickest" or "easiest." I am hoping that, by me catching them in the act and providing them feedback through the use of this ticket, students will not make a habit of rushing through their assignments this school year.


Feel free to download and use my template by clicking on the image above or visiting my TPT Store :)
Not a Teachers Pay Teachers Member? No problem! Click here and sign up for free! It is a great website in which you can download items for free or pay for items you really want/need. You can even create your own items and sell them! Make $$$$ for all that hard work you put in!

Edmodo

The past two years I have toyed around with using an online classroom element in my regular classroom. I chose Edmodo.com. It offers a lot of usual features. For the past two years, I worked in school where students had very limited internet access at their homes. However, we had an abundance of technology in our school, thanks to Title I funding. It was very easy to implement this in my classroom thanks to the use of iPads, iPod touches, and mobile laptop carts. Of course, this stuff only worked half of the time thanks to the wifi constantly going out...but I digress.

Edmodo.com for those of you who may not have seen it, is set up similar to Facebook layout. The great thing about this website, is it is only for students and teachers and it's FREE! It a closed and secure site. Teachers must give the students' a group code in order to join. Parents may also have access to this website. I had a few parents who utilized it to stay in touch when students were absent for prolonged periods of times. This website offers you the ability to create classrooms online. Students are then able to participate in online discussions, polls, and turn in assignments electronically (goodbye flash drives!).

I am not going to write a step by step tutorial for how to set up your own Edmodo, as their website does a great job. I am just going to discuss how I use Edmodo in my classroom.

I have 5 periods of 6th Grade Social Studies a day. Emodo allows me to create 5 separate groups, that I label 1st through 5th periods. I can then create assignments for the students by uploading a template or files I want the students to use. If I have a different assignment for specific class periods, I can put that assign the work to any of the 5 groups.


Edmodo gives students a space to upload their assignments. I do not have to worry about passing out endless amounts of flash drives and downloading their projects onto my computer anymore. It is essentially a  "dropbox" account for every student. After the students turn in their electronic files, I can grade them from the Edmodo platform and students will be able to log in to see their grades. I can also edit their papers, write comments, and provide feedback.


This website is a great area for students to discuss something they have read or to participate in polls. Edmodo allows you to create quizzes with either constructed responses and/or multiple choice options. You will receive a notification (you can customize these) every time a student completes the quiz or turns in an assignment.


If you are looking for an easy technology component for your classroom, please check out Edmodo.com.