Web Questing through Iran!

With only 9 school days left, I am beginning to spazz about getting all my material covered. I know I have taught the essential skills my students need to take with them to be successful in the 7th grade BUT I love my content so much I just want to teach it all. I am fortunate enough to cover WWI through present day issues and I enjoy it. I use to believe WWII was my favorite unit to teach but I have really grown to love the Cold War Era. It is all very fascinating to me and the kids love it because of the espionage aspect. Gotta love a good spy story!


We have made our way through Vietnam and have made it into the Nixon, Ford, and Carter years. The goal is to keep my students engaged because at times, history can become a bit monotonous. To actively engage my students, I have created a WebQuest on the Iran Hostage Crisis. I created a website for the students to navigate. I have done WebQuests in the past where I have just given the students various links to sort through. However, I did not find this as effective because since I was not maintaining those websites, I would often not be aware the websites were down or of broken links until a student would raise their hand which then prompts the other 10-15 students to raise his or her hand and tell you the exact same thing, "Mrs. Johnson, it's broken!" So, to eliminate these issues, I decided to use Google Sites and create a website designed specifically for my students and this WebQuest.


If you have never used a WebQuest in the classroom, I strongly urge you to do so. It is a great way to teach students to use resources to look for an answer. A WebQuest is similar to a scavenger hunt. Students have certain pieces of information they are looking for and you give them specific sites in which they can find the information. When I created my WebQuest, I incorporated primary sources: maps, photos, interviews, and video footage. Students are expected to analyze and study the documents to answer text dependent questions. I think added a RAFT activity (role, audience, format, and type) to the assignment as a final project.


My students are currently working on this activity and they seem to enjoy it. I'll post some pictures of completed RAFTs next week!

QR Codes and Word Walls 2.0

I have been sharing this strategy and learning tool at various workshops and I have been asked to provide people with step by step instructions of how I created the QR codes for my Word Wall. I decided to write a blog post. While this may seem familiar to my previous blog post (see here), I added a step by step tutorial of how I constructed my words for my word wall.


Step One:
Construct a list of your vocabulary words & definitions needed for your lesson or unit. I prefer to do mine by unit but it is your preference.

Step Two:
Find a free QR code generator on the internet.
I prefer to use: QR Code Generator because the QR code pops up right on the screen and I can then copy & paste the image without having to download it and/or save it. You can type a definition or you can have the QR code lead students directly to a website.

Step Three:
I open a Word document and type up my words. Then I go to the QR code generator and do one word at a time. For the example below, I am defining the key term "iron curtain." I will then copy the QR code image and paste it into my Word Document. The reason I do this is to stay organized. All the QR codes begin to look a like and if you print them without labeling them, it will take extra time to sort them later!

Here is a screen shot of what I do with the QR codes once I make them. I copy and paste each image and type the word beside it. Like I said above, this helps with the organization factor and it helps me to save paper because I shrink down the size of the QR code to make them small enough to fit on my sentence strips.

Step Four:
Print all of your QR codes off. Depending on the number of the words and the size of your QR code images, this should only take 1-2 sheets of paper.

Step Five:

Write your words on sentence strips, construction paper, cardstock, etc.

Step Six:

Cut out your QR code images (be careful to not cut into the actual encrypted part or else it won't scan) and glue them beside your words on the sentence strip.

 Step Seven:

 Cut your sentence strips. I am OCD and I plan to use these for a while so I try to make them as nice and neat as possible. I prefer to laminate mine when finished as well so they can be used again next year. I just hot glue them to my concrete wall at school and voila! Word Wall is complete!

Feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions. In the next few days, I hope to have some vocab activities I do with my students using QR codes so stay tuned!

Differentiated Instruction with WWII

Wow, we have been hit with this "polar vortex" and it has made teaching very sporadic lately. I struggled trying to get my WWII unit finished. I struggled with whether or not to keep my final project, the choice board but I decided to go out on a limb and keep it. I AM SOOO HAPPY THAT I DID! I must admit, I was almost guilty of doing quantity instead of quality. I was so worried about whether or not I was going to be able to fit in all my curriculum this year, that I was almost ready to cut corners. I am so grateful that I stuck with my gut and decided to allow the students an opportunity to really shine with this final assessment. My students did not disappoint!

At the conclusion of my WWII unit, I presented students with a choice board that held 9 project options. I wanted to give students enough wiggle room but structure at the same time. This was the first time I had introduced a choice board of this size. My students really loved this project. I was amazed at how different each project looked. It is truly amazing what students can do when we step back and just let them learn and discover on his/her own!

I have included some photographs of students' work below:

Word Walls and QR Codes!

If you are like me, sometimes you may struggle with making the word wall relevant or a tool that students use frequently. At the beginning of the year, I felt like my word wall was just there, taking up space. I wanted to spruce it up and I wanted  my students to actually pay attention to it! After all, I was spending a lot of time painstakingly writing the words on sentence strips, laminating, and cutting. Then, inspiration struck me! Why not add QR codes to my word wall? QR codes are the cute little barcodes you see on everything nowadays. You use a barcode scanner on your smart device and it will take you to a website or informational text. Students have technology at their finger tips but rarely know how to use it to discover information. I love it when I hear a student ask if they can look something up on their phone. I decided to take my word wall to the next level and guess what? Students love it and use it on a daily basis!

 

Here is a close-up of my laminated words and QR codes. Students are able to get up and scan the word.

The words at the top need to be redone. Those are my pitiful word wall words from the beginning of the year.

 

 

Of course, just like anything new you introduce to your students, you must teach procedures for how to interact with the word wall. I do not have the QR codes taking my students to websites, instead, I have it take them to a text document that has the definition provided. I am going to start putting QR codes on students' desks when they come in and it will provide them with a discussion question. I will post about this endeavor at a later time.

 

 

Also, if not all students have smart devices, don't fret! My students are in groups of 4 so usually, at least one student in the group has a smart device and can use it for the group. Also, if you have extra iPads, you could utilize those.

 

 

 

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!