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…

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,

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!

I’m a teacher…

Those few words tend to explain it all.  The scared look disappears from one’s eyes when a herd of folk with bags and boxes run towards them saying, “it’s okay, I’m a teacher.”  Instead, the eyes turn glassy as the holder of said free items watch in awe.

I’m a teacher.  Those words make it all okay.

It seems to be a fact — teachers like free stuff.  Not just any free stuff (although there are very few limits), but rather free stuff that can be used in our classrooms.  When will the stuff be used?  Well, that could be at any point over the next 20 years…our families would prefer if the junk free stuff leaves the basements, cars, garages, living room piles (did I really just say that?  Yes, admit it, we’ve been known to have *a few* school piles in the living room throughout the week) sooner rather than later.  But we, as teachers, know that anything from a toilet paper roll to an odd item laying on our neighbor’s lawn — anything that’s free, can typically be useful in the classroom.

Take, for example, the broom I picked up from my neighbor’s garbage one year — a great broom — good solid broomcorn.  A broom that was perfect for the anticipatory set I use during a science unit where I swat a pie pan which hits an egg which then falls into a jar.  Yes, I have a broom that I use once a year and it sits in my basement with my forces unit for the entire year just waiting for those 5 minutes of anticipatory set.

Take also, the stack of old ditto copies I was given from a former teacher — wonderful purple (remember that smell?) images that have started to fuzz on the edges…but they were free and you never know when you’ll need some solid purple fuzzy clip art!

Free is good.  Given that it’s Web Wednesday, I share with you a free resource online that I use every day in my classroom…and lots outside of it too!

Pandora is an internet radio site.  You type in the name of a group/singer or the name of a song and Pandora will play you non-stop music that is similar to that group/singer or song.  And it’s free!  There is the occasional advertisement (like Home Depot…questionable as the person listening to *free* radio is likely not going to buy something…but somebody’s gotta pay for this fantastic resource).

You can even give a thumbs up on songs so Pandora will continue to play them for you on that station.  Signing up (for free) means that Pandora will save that song and play it more often on that station that you’ve created.  You can create as many stations as you want…and it’s free.  Or you can just keep returning to www.pandora.com and use the free service without signing up.  You just won’t be able to save your stations.

So why in the classroom?  Sometimes you need music — you can create stations that are appropriate for your students.  There are also pre-made stations for children like:

	Kid’s Folk Music
	Toddler Radio
	Tween Radio
	Rockin’ Kids Radio

that play appropriate and pre-screened music.  So there are never concerns about inappropriate music coming on.

Having the music station is great for certain uses, but does not work for activities such as the conga line where you need music immediately.  There’s always the chance that the station will begin with an advertisement.  You certainly don’t want the students doing a conga line to the home depot advertisement.

Free.  Useful outside of the classroom — I heart the Pandora iPhone app!

Let me know what you think!  Happy Web Wednesday!

We decided to revamp our home office over the weekend — nothing major…just move every single piece of furniture in it to change it up a bit.  This moving of furniture, of course, led to me wanting to pull every single thing out of and pile it on the floor reorganize the office closet because I am anal efficient.  During this ‘reorganization’ of the closet came the discovery of my high school yearbooks.

Two hours after the first piece of office “stuff” (read: teacher paraphernalia) had been hauled out and scattered, I was on the floor calling out comments such as, “OMG, I remember when my friend and I …”; “This hair and outfit is AWESOME…isn’t this style coming back?” (I’ll have you know that I refrained from hauling myself down to the basement to find if I still owned said outfit and if it was in the tub labeled high school memory clothing…yes, I am that anal organized.)

This post was going somewhere…yes, right – onwards (I was getting sucked into my memory of hammer pants again).

Following that weekend, I heard some of my classic fave songs on the radio (and given my high school throw back on the weekend) I thought — what a fitting post — my favorite 5 of…  So here goes:

My Fave Fab Five:

(in no particular order)

Music

1.  Levellers

2.  The Police

3.  Moxy Fruvous

4.  Indigo Girls

5.  Depeche Mode

Outfits

1.  Waldo Halloween Costume worn to High School dance Grade 10

2.  Anything with my “London” boots

3.  Anything with a handbag

4.  Sailor costume from Pirates of Penzance musical in Grade 8

5.  Yoga pants with hoodie

Read Alouds

1.  Chrysanthemum

2.  Voices in the Park

3.  The Sweetest Fig

4.  The Relatives Came

5.  Two Bad Ants

Interaction Techniques

1.  Turn and Talk

2.  Mix and Freeze

3.  Information Gap

4.  Sage N’ Scribe

5.  Pair Compare

When was the last time I listened to the Levellers?  That would be on a VIA train in ’98…but they are still one of my favorites…and so many memories were brought forward when I saw my Levellers mixed tape (yes, tape!) in the office closet.

So what should we take away from my Fave Fab Five?  Other than some new outfits or mixed tapes you’ll want to pick up, I take a reminder that our students have memories of moments and teaching.  We need to cash in on them and use these moments to build upon when we teach new content.  We want students to get those warm and fuzzy feelings about fractions when the unit is introduced because they had previously played a great fraction game and walked away from the previous grade feeling great about fractions.  Or we want to create those new memories for students so that they can build upon them in the future.

And here’s a shout out to you: join in!  What are 5 of YOUR favorites?  Leave a comment below…

Today was the most awesomest (is that a word?  maybe in grade 5?  my spell checker doesn’t seem to think so!) day ever!  Let me share just a few reasons why:

My team worked together so incredibly well for 20 minutes this morning to ‘repair’ our classroom after I was away yesterday.  There were carpenters who fixed materials, cleaners, and supporters who helped cheer one another on.  I stood back and felt my heart warm…and it was fairly ice cold to begin with when I looked around at the floor littered with yesterday’s breakfast…ah, the child who came up to me two minutes into the day, “The floor is really dirty today.”  Yes, dear, that was you, not me.

All, yes all, students rocked a quick assessment on equivalent fractions.

We sang songs together while playing checkers and doing puzzles together during recess – it was like the 60s had come back.

My speed/time and distance/time graph sort went off in science without a hitch.  Learning objectives met for most students, enthusiasm high, student reflection on fire, and support for one another in action.  I was lucky enough to catch this dynamo superbly justifying to one another why the graph specifically went with the description.  Warms the heart!

I received an out-of-the-blue warm fuzzy note from a former student, now in high school.

As he walked out the door a current student shared with me that I rocked because “that mini lesson has excited me about history — I cannot wait to learn more…my head is about to explode!”  While it’s always nice to get a pat-on-the back, I adore his passion for learning!

Personalities shone through on the ticket out the door (see below)…back story is that I leave my computer speakers on all day because we listen to a ton of music each day (transitions, relaxing, etc.) and the school’s new anti-virus program speaks, telling us that it’s been updated.  Of course, with speakers on, we all hear it, thank it (him?  we have started naming the voice Bob), and move on.

And of course, the capper on the night was when my oh so friendly neighbors popped over to borrow some baking soda and one shared that he had done a Pair Compare today — woot woot SIOP.  I will save the glory for him to share…stop around for it later!

Just a rockin’ day.  My darlings came through – I can’t wait to spend another day with them.

Great things happen in our classrooms each day!  What great stories do you have to share?