Tuesday Tidbit

New mantra: Tuesday will be my blogging day!

I wanted to share about a wonderful resource that I discovered last year. Anyone that uses the news show Channel One News in their classroom is already familiar with the lyrics of Flocabulary. Last year, a friend ushered me to the following site: www.flocabulary.com. It's an educational hip-hop site. There are free songs and videos you can access. If you like it enough, you can even enjoy a two week free trial (I used the free trial last year and got my school to purchase books and cds for me this year)! My kids LOVE learning the raps and I LOVE that they are learning about ancient history in the process.
I shall conclude today by sharing the words of wisdom I departed to my class of students who all want to be famous football players and the next pop sensation: "Don't become too famous!"
Crazy weird. I know. However, after sitting beside the star player of the Clemson football team at brunch on Sunday and getting super stinky service because he was in the building, I am stepping up on my soap box. Plus, he had football and posters (where they came from, I will never know) shoved in his face to sign along with being gawked at through the entire meal. I'm not mad at him and actually feel really sorry that he can't go anywhere without being BOLDLY stalked. Stepping down from soap box and reading for my TGC online class. The day never ends...

Rumor has it...

There's a rumor that blogs don't survive without posts. I shall not let this die!
Clearly, it has been a while and I apologize. I have been much busier than expected. While loads has happened, I promise to keep it short and simple. Here are some things that have been occupying my time as of late for my (school) kids.
1. Common Core PD
Love it and hate it all in the same exhale. We recently had an inservice addressing the implementation of informational texts in the classroom. My district is focusing on changing our teaching practices to better prepare the kids for the new standards/testing.
2. Work, work, work
I'm been planning like my life depends on it. I have been able to come up with a few new ideas that I'm excited about. I'm going to have to take a breather soon. I feel like I never stop! It's totally worth it though.
3. Bulletin boards
I'm NOT a fan. I want to make something that I can add to throughout the year. Currently taking any and all suggestions.
4. TGC
I'm starting my online class for TGC this week. I'm a little nervous, but pretty excited for this experience to get underway. I received my Sony Bloggie last week. I'll be testing it out this week! Yay for free technology! :)
Can't think of much more than this after hosting a party Friday night and spending the weekend showing off my town to my friend from Charleston.

Tuesday...the new Monday?!?!

Happy Labor Day, y'all! Clearly, I missed that by a little...oops!
Today, Tuesday, is definitely feeling like a Monday. Sometimes I hate strongly dislike 4 day weeks! I have worked enough today to justify have the rest of the week off (in my opinion)!
This post will be short and simple. It's raining outside a.k.a. my jammies and bed are SCREAMING my name.
I must mention that I absolutely love my kids. Tomorrow we're starting our first full unit of the year on early cultures (the Stone Ages). I'm pretty excited. We're going to take some notes and talk about inferences while watching clips from the 1981 movie Caveman. It's ridiculously hilarious and has some pretty famous faces (Shelley Long, Ringo Starr, Dennis Quaid). If I could get away with showing the whole movie, I would, however, my kids would definitely pick up on some of the inferences made in the movie! Gotta keep my day job! :)
Tomorrow is also huge because I have my first official webinar with the 2012 TGC (Teachers for Global Classrooms) group. Long story short, after applying and being selected, I have to complete an online course about global education, travel to D.C. for pre/post symposiums, and travel to a foreign country for 3 weeks next summer. I'm pretty stinking excited. If all of my requests are honored, I'll travel to either Morocco, Ghana, or Brazil. Lets be real...I have no money so wherever they want to send me is beyond fine by me!
Super excited for all of the opportunities!

I made it!

O.M.G.
What a crazy week! I am seriously exhausted after a great first week with my new sixth graders. So exhausted that I finally got out of the bed around 1:30 p.m. even though I have been up since 8:00 a.m. Crazy!??! They are so cute & extremely polite! It is refreshing to see that some parents are still teaching their kids manners.

I late posting a few things, so I am going to try to tackle a couple of things in this post.
Here it goes:

Hug Your Heart jar & Brain Break Activities (in the smiley face jar)

I have no idea where I originally heard of the Hug Your Heart jar, but I decided to make one a few weeks ago. I want to emphasis the good things that students do. I teach sixth graders and sometimes their actions can be quite the opposite of kind. Clearly, when I took this picture, I hadn't filled it with Hersey Hugs yet, but I think it's pretty cute. It is plastic because I can see it being dropped (sixth graders don't have the best coordination)! I covered it with owl stickers because for our Greek mythology unit, I am the goddess Athena. I try not to let my newly found owl obsession run wild!
I'm going to add a cute poem to this that I found on  a first grade blog. I will be making it owl themed of course...I can't resist.

The smiley face jar has brain break activities. I got most of the ideas from a third grade blog and added a few of my own. I have yet to introduce the concept to my kids since we have only seen my classes twice in four days, but they are really interested in knowing what is up with the smiley face jar.
I wrote the activity on one side of the stick and a description on the back. I'll have to link up my activities, but they include the following:
Cha-Cha Slide, Telephone game, Mab Libs, Simon Says, Seat Switch, and Hot Potato questions

That's all for now. I'm off to actually enjoy my weekend and not focus on school stuff for a while. Off to a practice tailgate party. As we often tell the kids, practice makes perfect! :)

Holy Moly...

First off, today is a happy day! Just found out that my very first DonorsChoose project just got funded in under 48 hours! This is one shocked and happy teacher! :)

In other news...tomorrow is the first day of school! I cannot believe it! Summer went by so quickly! I am clearly in a state of complete shock! Although, I cannot be too mad because the weather is cooling off and football season is gearing up. Bliss!

The last few days have been a fast and furious scramble to get everything ready for the big day. To my knowledge, everything is taken care of (schedules, lockers, health forms, course outline). I hope that when I wake up tomorrow, I still have this false sense of calm about me.
With all of that being said, I am really excited to see my new students. Summer Sizzle Fizzle was Saturday (registration). They kids for the most part were very excited to start the 6th grade. I can only hope that the enthusiasm carries over to tomorrow morning!

I did want to share a few pics of the room that I managed to remember to take this afternoon. Still missing one or two things, but it'll do for day one.

My desk area & the computer station

View from the doorway
Decided to pair up the students for the first few days of school

Student supplies & paper turn-in boxes labeled by class period

"Hug" Your Heart jar
The smiley vase contains our Brain Break activities

View from the front of the room
Labeled crates on the back table to hold their interactive notebooks

Wishing everyone a great first day of school!

Live Project!

Yay! My DonorsChoose project was accepted. Please consider helping my students and I reach the goal of having this project funded by October 26th.
THIS WEEK ONLY (now through August 26th), donations are automatically doubled! Please spread the word!

My Class Project

Tuesday Tidbit #1

Normally, I would never double post...who has the time?!?
Since Tuesday will be one of the "free" days during the year, I figured I would designate it as my day to blog. I'm sure that might fly out of the window once the kids come next week, but I'm gonna give it a solid try.
I was talking with a new teacher today and was asked a great question that got my wheels turning.
What do you know now, that you wish you had known when you first started teaching?

Here are my top the lessons learned/ pieces of advice for the new kids on the block:

1. The bookkeeper should be your best friend.
   I don't know how things work at other schools, but if my bookkeeper ever decided to leave, I'd head out the door with her. The woman single-handedly runs the school. OK, not literally, but seriously, we'd fall apart without her. The bookkeeper knows all the ins and outs and can even "suggest" ways for you to get the things you need with you can't afford them. My basic philosophy is to treat her right & sing her praises!
2. Lessons will fail.
   Every lesson will not go as planned. Be flexible and adapt it for later use. There is no need to beat yourself up when things go wrong. Learn from it. There is absolutely no point in dwelling on the negatives. Remember writing all of those reflections in college...yeah...
3. Find a friend.
   You must have at least one friend in your school building. When I moved a few years ago to my current school, I was beyond nervous to be the newbie. I most certainly didn't need to worry because from the moment I stepped onto the campus, I had two immediate friends/ team teachers take me under their wings.
   You need someone to collaborate with and to vent with. OK, if  nothing else, a venting partner will do. You can't do it all alone.
4. Don't forget about the rest of your life.
   Sometimes I feel that I give everything, including my "personal time," to my students/ job. As my friend say, "There are people in real life who want to talk to you." Be sure to plan time for yourself and time with the people you care about most. I can be easy to lose yourself and others in the mix.
5. Kids forgive and forget (even if you don't).
   I teach sixth graders and trust my, they do forgive and forget even faster. We're not perfect beings so we will screw up sometimes, but apologize and keep it moving. The kids won't hold it against you. I think it's good for them to see that sometimes (like once a year), we don't have it all together.

What is some advice you'd give a novice? I'd love to hear what you think.

Back in the Habit...kinda

Today was the second day back for teachers. It has been incredibly hard to get back into the routine of things. My camera is officially dead so there are currently no pics of my classroom, but I hope to change that situation by the end of the week.
There have already been hours upon hours of meetings. Today's emphasis was on CCS (Common Core Standards). The implementation should be really interesting. I'm we are starting to work on this as a faculty now instead of waiting until next year when we officially have to implement them.
I'm crossing my fingers (and toes) hoping I'm much more productive in the classroom than I was today. I'm pretty sure I only organized the student supplies and hung up one poster. Must. Do. Better.
I get to meet most of my kids at registration this Saturday. Getting pretty excited minus the fact that my room is kinda a disaster.
The rest of today is devoted to updating my classroom website.

Best wishes for a wonderful & successful school year!

Homework Contract & Binder

I can't believe this is my last weekend of summer! My heart hurts just a little, but I'm pretty anxious to get this school year up and running. I guess that's apparent since it's 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning and I'm typing this...
Like many of you, I've been pinning the summer away and I came across some pins concerning homework. The first pin was a No Homework Binder and the second was a Homework Contract. (I can't find the link to the Homework Contract at the moment. Ekk!)

I borrowed and modified to create my own. I'm pretty excited about it because it should eliminate the number of excuses I hear from students about why their homework isn't complete. I also added an area where I document how parents are notified that their child was missing their work.

Homework (ahhh, yeah)!

Today's topic is about homework! However, there's a little twist with this assignment. My students (must to their dismay...at first) receive homework on the very first day of school. This helps to set the tone for the class and lets them know my expectations regarding homework upfront. They quickly learn this assignment is mostly for them to learn how to be responsible.
One the first day of school, I miss up some fun activities with all the "paper work" that has to be done. They get to know things about  me on the first day and then we spend the rest of the week with different activities daily so that the students get to know each other. I conclude the first day by giving my students an assignment called One Million Words or Less. They write this in their agenda and we go through the process of stamping my signature (had 2 personal signature stamps made at Staples two years ago...BEST purchases ever)! After this, I pass out the assignment and then there's a collect sigh of relief when they realize they don't actually have to do any "work."
One Million Words or Less is an assignment for parents to share with me about their child. In a million words or less, they are to tell me whatever it might be that they want me to know. I don't know where I got this idea from, but it has been on of the BEST ways for me to learn about my kids and establish parent to teacher communication. I've learned about illnesses, surgeries, adoptions, summer vacations, siblings and the list could go on forever. In many cases, it helps explain that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree! Parents have a week to complete the assignment (I do allow e-mails and phone calls). FYI: All the information I gather is confidential. Permission is asked of the parent before anything is said to others.

I do write a little more in my letter to parents, but here's the prompt to get you started if you so choose to use it. Enjoy! :)
How do you get to know your students and establish parent communication?

Expectations

I've been "planning" a lot this summer a.k.a. perusing through pins on Pinterest. The other day I came a across a really cute way to display classroom expectations. I didn't quite LOVE the original version though. This year, I'm hoping to make my classroom student-centered. Of course, my kids are always the focus in my room, but this year, I'm differentiating my instruction so the student has more choice as to how they learn and display knowledge to me (CYOA: Create Your Own Assignment). More on this will come later (probably right before the school year starts and I'm getting my rear into high gear (hopefully)! :)
Here's a free pdf of MY VERSION and a link to the TpT version I saw via Pinterest. 
I do believe this will be displayed on/ by my desk this year. 6th graders LOVE to come up with some really creative excuses or recycle THE originals. No, really, the dog DID eat my homework...smh.

Woo

Welcome y'all!

Who is it exactly that says teachers don't work during summer? They clearly have no idea of whom they speak!

Welcome to my new adventure. The upcoming school year is a BIG one for me and I needed a place to document the excitement outside of my "school" blog. I'm hoping to use this as a place to collect all of my ideas (good and bad...lets hope for mostly good) AND to share stories of my kiddos (since I'm always put on the spot at parties and can never remember the really good story when I need it). I promise I love my kids! :)

So you want to know about me?
I teach World History to about 130 sixth graders. Yes, 130...you read it right.(This year I think we're starting the year about the 145 mark...yeah?) I need all the organizational tips I can get! I love teaching. I love my students. I love my teammates. I feel very blessed and lucky to have such a wonderful support system.

My current goal is to fill you in on my preparations for the beginning of the year. Once the school year starts, I'll share ideas, modifications and plenty of stories. Feel free to post comments and share your ideas and strategies!

Thanks for stopping by!