A happy hello mid-summer!
For those teachers doing mid-summer planning, be sure to refer to this post for a handy dandy Bloom’s chart that provides verbs and activities to increase the higher order thinking skills in our teaching.
Happy planning!
All my bags (boxes) are packed and I’m ready to go (on vacation).
I’m standing here outside your (my) door.
I hate (love) to wake (hug) you to say goodbye.
But the dawn is breakin (reports are done) and it’s early morn (won’t be tomorrow when I wake up).
The taxi’s (my car full of stuff) is waiting. He’s blowin’ his horn (is stuffed to the gills).
My room has been pack and materials shoved to the corner for summer cleaning. Reports are done and I’m off for a break. Sort of. I’ll be training teachers for a few weeks and blogging on my personal site.
I shall be sporadically blogging here during the summer and shall see you in September.
Happy summer, my friends!
I have been sequestered to ICUs, hospital rooms, and living rooms with muted televisions…thus, my online absence. Last week, my husband had emergency lung surgery. After many a tense moment, we are both relieved that all is well and he is healing nicely. But then again, who wouldn’t when you have staples stapling staples in your chest?
With many a moment to think over the past week and a half, here is my five (weekend edition):
I am thankful:
1. … that my husband is alive.
2. … that I have a tremendous group of friends and neighbors that take care of my life without a second guess.
3. … that I am not so anal-retentive that I can be gone from school for 1.5 weeks and be focused solely on my husband (well…until that last day when we knew all was well and I would be returning to school soon…the itch started to come back — but it didn’t come back for a good week!)
4. … that my students came through in crunch time and weathered a sub for a week and a half with decorum (mostly) and minimal damage to the classroom (remember this?).
5. … that the iris has bloomed in my pond and there are many a lily pad – reminding me that life continues.
That would your five be? Enjoy your weekend, friends!
Isn’t it amazing how just allowing students to work together increases engagement and increases the use of content vocabulary. I used Information Gap today in Social Studies -one of my faves- and it was a hit. In fact, I was pleasantly (one of those woo hoo teachery moments) wooed when my students piped up, “we did this last time using ____ information” — it’s so nice that they know the expectations of an activity just by me naming the “teachery name” for it — like information gap. Too bad I lose them in approximately 3.5 weeks. Ah well, let’s hope the middle school teachers do an information gap…
What are your thoughts on the Information Gap? Not sure what I mean? Check out this post or read up on it here.
See you tomorrow for Web Wednesday…and the next day for my 100th post!
If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that I just returned (and have since recuperated – thank you Tassimo) from a multi-day over night field trip with my students to colonial forts and whatnot.
During that trip, I had the pleasure of also supervising students from another class on the bus.
Now my students can have their days (who doesn’t?) but I love ‘em. Because of them, I’ll be up all hours laminating games I’ve created because I know that their sugary sweet and boogery hands will likely leave some unidentifiable goop on my game if I don’t. Who knows…maybe I had some unidentifiable goo on my body when I was 10 too…come to think of it, I do know that I had a pet egg that my friends and I kept in doll beds on our desks…my god – really, you ask? Yes, what was Mrs. leger thinking? Likely, that she loved us.
My students know ‘the look’ – you know the one. The one, as my students defined it so aptly to a chaperone on the six hour long bus ride last week, where Ms. Straus reminds us that this is learning time and we’d better get it together or else.
Well, this other class? They don’t know the look…at least not mine. I’d have thought the look was universal. Who knows.
Regardless, this one girl was running places more than she should. I mean, come on. Does being in a hotel breakfast room with your friends and without your parents really need to incite the ‘let’s run to the waffles’ rule? So I called her out on it. It was the third time in a 24 period she’d been running like a mad woman and about to bowl someone over.
Well, something went wrong with the look (and the talk, for that matter), as apparently, she was was reduced to tears when in the privacy of her hotel room.
I know, I know. I’m such a meanie…I mean taking them on a week over-night trip. So mean. Sigh.
So you have the dichotomy — the loving teacher who receives homemade coffee mugs with inscriptions of” to a loving teacher…and the teacher who reduces 10 year olds to tears.
Am I one person? 2? How are teachers the strict no nonsence meanies but also get love mugs?
I tell ya. And to all the Mrs. Legers out there…what have you put up with lately that just makes you laugh?
Happy Monday!
Can you smell that?
It’s the utter exhaustion emanating from my body. I’m tired! Bless the UPS man who has been systematically delivering macchiatos and cappuccinos for my Tassimo straight to my doorstep. The thought of a caramel macchiato was what got me out of bed this morning after a 14 hour sleep.
1. I’ve just returned from a multi-day trip with my darlings to study colonial life. We did up forts, slept like colonial soldiers, marched like soldiers, compared rifles with muskets, and dragged water for our gardens from the lake. I could have done without the 5:50 a.m. drum call and was none too ashamed to have taken my Thermarest to soften the blows of a wooden floor and a straw-filled mattress.
2. I was all a go with the quality teaching yesterday after having just returned from the trip. I had planned a Sage and Scribe activity with a differentiated sheet on Crossing the Delaware and the Battle of Saratoga. After discussing appropriate language to be used during the activity (get your heads out of the gutter – we didn’t have THAT conversation), the students were off. Not even 2 minutes in, and I could see students dragging their heads towards their partners and pencils slovingly being dragged across the paper.
ok. eyes on me.
Would you rather do this whole class?
A relieved yes unified the class and we were back to our seats.
Even SIOP can’t beat the exhaustion of a tired group of soldiers. Sometimes whole group discussion has its place…and that place was my classroom on a Friday after returning from a week long trip 6 hours from home!
3. Although they too were exhausted, my dear darlings came to school adorned with gifts for me yesterday. here are just a few of the treasures that my treasures brought for me:
I will say that I love teaching students who are in tune with human feelings enough to understand the load of work that teachers do (hence a homemade mug with a personalized thank you note…and a coffee mug, no less) but also still have a hankering for sweet candy…those cola airheads were awesome!
5. I came across this Substitute Teacher Class Report form when I was recreating a sub folder the year I was away and without my entire basement. I’m thinking of using it in the mega-magnificent binder contraption I have planned for next year.
And now, I shall put on my newest CD (woo hoo Amazon mp3 downloads): Zoey van Goey’s The cage was unlocked all along and perhaps begin the loads of laundry that are full of colonial skunk and which I must walk over ever time I enter the kitchen…my idea being that if I put the laundry piles where I had to walk over them, I do the laundry faster. Will it work?
Likely not.
I have been wanting to catch up on Ten Things I Hate About You episodes online.
Exhaustion. Check.
Rationale for watching cheesy kids’ shows in the middle of a Saturday afternoon?
I’m sure I can come up with something.
Have a great weekend, all!
Hello all,
Sometimes I need more playing cards than I have laying around the classroom (although, I do adore the 2/$1 card packs I seem to frequently pop into the Dollar Tree for!) and so I’ve come to printing off some paper cards and keeping them around for those extra needs. I found a great set at TeachNet — you can download the playing card set at my site here.
Have you seen the book plates at My Home Library? I like to have students use them when they create their own multi-page stories/books.
I’m sure you’ve had a chance to see this over the past week, but if you haven’t — get a load of this middle schooler:
You can read about his multiple television appearances following the recording here.
If only…
Whew! Has Friday come and gone? I do believe I need to rename my Five on Friday to Five (see above), as getting to the couch and a glass of wine on a Friday is hard enough, let alone a blog post. Perhaps the goal of by Sunday eve would be best. You’ll need to check back each week to see which day prevails! 
So here you have it – my five for this week!
1. This past week has flown by. I’ve been asking myself just where the week went. You’ll notice that I missed my Thursday post. Perhaps you’ll glean why from my post today. I’ve enjoyed many a sweet conversation with students over the American Revolution and I’m sad to see that we’ve seen the week fly by, as it means we are soon at the Battle of Saratoga and before I know it we’ll be at the Bill of Rights. My students love the American Revolution and I attribute a lot of it to this, this, and this.
2. I have been busy making caramel latte macchiatos with my new Tassimo. Bliss, let me tell you. Let me also tell you that having such a delightful drink at 8 pm so that you can finish last minute preparations for a BIG field trip is great and all to keep you awake but doesn’t help you at all when you need to get to sleep…and are still watching the clock at 1:30 a.m. Powerful stuff those macchiatos.
3. I’ve been having my students do a lot of the teaching over the past few weeks. They’ve taken great initiative in creating their teaching aids – some have even made quizzes and flip books voluntarily.
4. I enjoy learning or reviewing vocabulary words using VocabAhead. About a year ago, I signed up for their Word a Day and thus, I get a new word and video delivered to my inbox each day. Once I even got to use a word and video when coincidentally, a student reading Hatchet what a word meant…and it was the Word of the Day in my inbox. Check it out — the pictures and videos are fun!
5. Quote of the week — when shopping with my husband at the outlet mall and reflecting that the 80s and 90s have returned as a mixed venture:
Me: “Didn’t Kurt Cobain die in that shirt?”
Hope you enjoyed a lovely weekend — I did lots of planting and loved it!
Or rather ABCya!
Welcome to:
Today I share a find! A true ‘solid piece of jewelery at a Florida flea market’ kind of find.
I am currently using this website with my own students and we all love it — great graphics, lots of sounds, and useful content based material. ABCya sums it us best themselves:
“ABCya! is the leader in free educational kids computer games and activities for elementary students to learn on the web. All children’s educational computer games and activities were created or approved by certified teachers. ABCya! educational games are free and are modeled from primary grade lessons and enhanced to provide an interactive way for children to learn. ABCya! games and activities incorporate content areas such as math and reading while introducing basic computer skills. Many of the kindergarten and first grade games are equipped with sound to enhance understanding.”
For those looking for something a bit more serious — check out the Freedom Map. It’s a site that shares the Political Rights Score, Civil Liberties Score, and overall Freedom Status of a country. Be sure to check it out even for yourself!
Tell me how these go with your class…
If you think this post is about the time that I rather nicely lip-synced my way through an Aerosmith song at a ‘lively’ high school party, I’ll say it right off — it’s not. If that’s what you want, well, you can keep checking back to see if I ever let that story out of the bag. It’s certainly not going to be today.
No, this story revolves around my darlings. They’ve been called many ‘a thing. Never rockstars. Until today.
When I first started teaching I was a Harry Wong wanna-be. I read his book. Multiple times. A. Day. Yes, a bit of a freak!
Harry Wong professes that structure and organization are key to being an effective teacher. For those who know me — those 2 criteria? Not a problem!
Being structured and organized has its place. But it doesn’t matter how organized you are, if your class is going to talk right over you and say the oddest things at the oddest moments. And thus, it’s humor, now, that I find making its way more and more into my classroom. There’s nothing like laughing when a child walks straight into you and says, “oh sorry, I didn’t see you.” Or when a child says, “Ms. Straus, are you mad? Your eyes are doing funny things.” Or when a child puts their arm around you and says, “I can tell what you are thinking right now. You want to give us another recess but are trying to decide how to tell us.” Or when you leave for a day and return to find a piece of wood on your desk that looks suspiciously like a piece of the wall.
I have several students who eat lunch with me every day. I should say they eat, I do work. When they finish eating (because they need to calm of the classroom instead of the chaos of the lunchroom), the students head to the computers in the classroom.
Today, I had 4 boys listening (if I could call it that…but I’ll get to that) to music while playing games.
Do you know when a favorite song comes on the radio and you know it but don’t exactly know all of the words but really want to belt it out? What do you do? Kinda hum along and say the words when you hear them. Like this clip from one of the best movies ever:
Yes. I heard 4 boys doing THAT with their individual songs for 20 minutes. Now, when we do it in the car, we realize that we sound ridiculous but are having fun with that one song that we just looove. These boys? No, they had no clue they were doing it. 20. Minutes. Mixed. Together.
The best part? When they would turn to each other and pretend they were singing to each other…but not even say the words — they’d hum to each other. So what’d I do as I tried to get a ton of paperwork off my desk? (other than think about pulling the plugs out of the wall?) Just laugh. And call to my Rock Stars 20 minutes later to follow me to the next class.
Fittingly, this was the quote from the Classroom Chuckles Blog earlier this week:
“A classroom you can hear laughter coming from on a daily basis is a healthy classroom. Laughter and the noise of learning is different from classroom chaos. New teachers will soon learn the difference.”
Any stories you want to share? YOU may be willing to share your Aerosmith story.
Thanks for stopping by friends,
Hi all,
My most recent newsletter is available for reading and should have arrived to your inbox early this morning if you’ve signed up for it. If you haven’t signed up for it yet, you can do so through the SIOP newsletter archives link to the right.
Enjoy my friends. I’d love to hear some feedback on the ideas.
My list o’ 5 this week is a mash of everything that’s rolling around in my head. Enjoy your travels!
1. Yesterday my students made me so proud because they completely (and I mean completely!) controlled themselves in what could have been a chaotic situation. You see, yesterday was Multicultural Day (MCD) or what some have termed MultiChaos Day at our school – a culminating event to each class studying and presenting on a country in the world. Picture 400 students presenting and rotating through classrooms, being entertained and shooed out on an 8 minute interval cycle. Potential for darlings to freak out? Um, yes! Potential for teachers to freak out? Um, yes! My darlings came through. I survived. Yes, mission accomplished. Reason for not getting to my Five on Friday on Friday? You just heard it!
2. I have several Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott wanna bes in my room. Picture 1 tricorn hat and 3 students galloping around the room, “The British are coming.” No, I don’t think they’ll forget Lexington and Concord. All for a $6 tricorn hat. Nice! Never underestimate the potential for learning with a cheap prop.
3. SIOP encourages teachers to paraphrase a student’s thoughts when teaching. However, this comic from May 7 illustrates why we can’t over do our corrections and why waiting until the student has finished speaking and then paraphrasing is perhaps the best way to go:
4. As I continue to teach the American Revolution, I’m reminded how important it is to not just be teaching our students the individual content standards and the lesson’s objectives but to be reminding the students of how the current lesson fits into the larger picture of their Social Studies lessons…and in this way, we’ll be able to never hear “but why does this mean anything?” This week, my class will be working on creating a large timeline of important events that we’ve studied since the beginning of Grade 5…but in comic form. Students will be using this page that I’ve created for the timeline purpose:
5. I’m thinking of reorganizing my guest (substitute) teacher folder over the summer… perhaps a super duper color coordinated page protector collection of awesomeness. My question to you is this: what would you put in such a collection of awesomeness?
Have a great weekend,
What a great day! I got to spend a lovely day with my SIOP cohort — a wonderfully dedicated group of educators who’ve committed themselves to spending at least 1-2 times a month with me, such that I can fill them up with theories, activity ideas, and push them to question their teaching philosophies and methods. As usual, we thought and laughed a lot.
Here are some websites that I’ve visited recently:
I was introduced to this service by my good friend and teaching neighbor JT. Potential political biases aside CNN provides a short and informative news clip for students each day. The news stories tend to stay away from politics and instead typically focus on national and international happenings. Today’s clip, for example, is on the Tennessee Floods. What I like best about the student clips (typically 11 minutes long) is that they stop periodically to ask the students quiz questions and provide them with student friendly quick fun facts. Now, Carl Azuz, the anchor is no Anderson Cooper…but it’s hard to look that good at 43! For those Anderson fans, take the Anderson Cooper quiz.
2) Shodor (a national resource for computational science education) has a fabulous collection of free interactive math tools. Aimed at Gr. 3-12 math and science teachers, this site has lessons, an online dictionary, and best of all — online tools. Comparing fractions, for example, has a lesson and this online fraction comparing number line java applet that can be manipulated.
3) The Poetry Archives is a great resource that I rely on when I’m looking for a classic poem. I like to use Emily Dickinson poems, for example, when I teach description in writing and visualizing in reading. I know that I can depend on this site to provide me with simple printable versions of the poems and are easy to copy for the students to use in activities.
4) This Science hotlist is an easy place to start when looking for online clips, demonstrations, and lessons.
I shall leave you with a Mr. Duey fractions clip…you can be sure that the cohort discussed Vanilla Ice a bit today…reminded me of Mr. Duey. Enjoy!
Thanks for stopping by friends,
Happy Teacher Appreciation Day…week!
Staff at our school were treated to a goody bag of treats:
Of course, when asked why they appreciate me, my students respond:
Because you always dress so fancy. Hmm…grammar aside, let’s ponder that one for a moment.
Happy Day!
See you tomorrow for Web Wednesday!
Look Who’s Talking…