Hard to believe it's been two years since my last post, wow! It's been a bit crazy around here, but I'll talk about that later.
So we are embarking on another year in just two days. I have to say, I'm pretty excited! This will be year 5 at my campus, teaching both Algebra 2 and Precalculus. This is the first year that I am not really feeling the beginning of the year anxiety that usually sets in during our PD days. Really, this is quite amazing considering some of the significant changes that are happening this year.
First off, we have a new principal. He seems pretty awesome so far, but his leadership style is definitely different than the last principal, and I loved the last principal's style. I'm not really worried about working for someone new, but my hope is that he is present for the kids. We have a pretty awesome admin team with 4 assistant principals as well, but the principal's presence on campus is so important for the kiddos on our campus.
I also have 3 new teachers on my team, one of which was hired last week and has only been on our campus for two and a half days. I'm sure he's feeling a little anxious about starting with the kids already on Monday. So far, each one of our new team members brings something different to the team and I'm pretty excited about these new additions.
This year we are also starting a new intervention program with our math kiddos that have previously failed or are at risk for failing their Algebra 1 STAAR. I have a group of 8 freshman kiddos that I will be working with from day 1. In the past we have waited and started intervention sometime in the middle of the fall semester for repeat testers or the middle of spring for at-risk freshman, but this year we are getting our group of kids from day 1 so that we can first build a strong relationship with them before starting on the intervention work. The plan is to do SEL activities with them on Mondays, intervention work and tutorials Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and then Friday Fun day, which is reserved for team building and game activities. I'm especially looking forward to the Friday's because I love games, and many of our students have never played a board game or card game in their lives.
I really am hoping to be more intentional about reflection this year and hopefully some more regular blogging. I guess this is a start!
Showing posts with label #MTBoS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #MTBoS. Show all posts
Saturday, August 10, 2019
Saturday, August 19, 2017
Classroom Management
I'm a little intimidated writing a post on classroom management because I am no expert and I've had plenty of classroom chaos in my years. What I have become better at is rolling with the punches when things don't go exactly as planned.
For me, the best way to keep things going in the right direction in the classroom is engagement. It's those idle times that lend themselves to a little monkey business from my darlings. From the time they walk in until the bell rings at the end of 50 minutes, my goal is to keep them busy. Here are a few thoughts about what it means to me to "keep them busy."
- I train my students to begin working on something as soon as they walk in the door. Whether it's some problem they pick up on the shelf when they walk in the door, or a warm up activity I've posted on my screen, they learn really quick that when I walk in after the tardy bell, my expectation is that they are already working.
- I try to vary my activities every 10 - 15 minutes to cut out the boredom. Throw in at least one where they have to get up out of their seat an move around a bit.
- I use a lot of group activities where I will select one from the group to grade, but I don't tell them which one ahead of time. Each student has a different colored piece of paper and I draw the color to grade at the end of the period.
- I find setting a time goal very helpful to keep them on task and up with the class. I'll say something like "You have exactly 2 minutes and 32 second to complete the next problem and then we are moving on." Not sure why this works, but its like they don't want to be left behind because they know we are moving on to something else after this.
The end of class is usually where I have my struggles for class structure. Biggest pet peeve of mine is students who want to pack up and stand at the door before the bell rings. I found myself saying a few too many times, "What, are we back in kindergarten, standing in line to leave the class?" Totally my own fault, I'll own it, but I have to get better at this part of my class this year. A teammate of mine suggested that I allow them to pack up 3-4 minutes before the bell, but then have one more quick closure to do until the bell. I'm envisioning saying, "You have 2 minutes to pack up and be ready for...." Hoping that this time goal will ensure they pack up quickly, but are still attentive to the fact that we are not done yet.
My math team actually set a goal this year for all of us to work towards bell to bell engagement so maybe I'll have some more ideas to share as the year continues.
Saturday, August 5, 2017
Goals
Gah! Where did the last year go? I cannot believe that it has been over a year since I last blogged. I recently saw @jreulbach post about the new MTBoS Sunday Funday blogging initiative and am going to try and jump back into blogging more regularly.
So what kind of goals do I have this year? Honestly, I sometimes become overwhelmed with all the things I want to do in my life in general, which then results in getting very little accomplished. I know, I know, I need to just focus on one or two things to make it all more manageable. This is a very hard thing for me to do. Here's what I have so far...
So what kind of goals do I have this year? Honestly, I sometimes become overwhelmed with all the things I want to do in my life in general, which then results in getting very little accomplished. I know, I know, I need to just focus on one or two things to make it all more manageable. This is a very hard thing for me to do. Here's what I have so far...
Classroom Goals
- Incorporate the use of the Desmos graphing tool in more lessons. I was very inspired by @saravdwerfs post about Evangelizing Desmos and just how Desmos can be a game changer in the classroom and how it can build equity and access for all our students. I want to use it to build great conversations and to help them see the math they are doing.
- Student Reflection and Feedback. This is another big one for me this year. I want to really focus on teaching my students how to reflect on their learning by providing feedback to them in a variety of ways. I want to get away from just getting the answer and being done. I want them to really see the value in really digging deeper into the problems and being able to explain what their thinking was when they were solving the problem. Not exactly sure how this will look, but I'm working on it.
Professional Goals
- Reflecting on my teaching even more. Obviously if I value this for my students, then its something I need to model and refine for myself too.
- Focus on being an encouragement for me team at school, seeking ways to build them up and help them become better teachers.
Personal Goals
- I got really lazy about exercising last year, always with a good excuse why I couldn't make it to the gym. This year I want to get to the gym more often and if I can't manage that I want to at the very least walk regularly.
- Be more consistent about cooking and eating healthier meals. We will be down to just the two of us this fall as we send all four of our kids off to college. I know that it would be easy to just grab something for the two of us, so I am going to have to really make an effort to plan and cook.
Just for Fun
- I used to be more of an artsy kind of person, but just haven't had time to pursue those things in the last couple of years. With my kids all out of the house I am hoping to dabble a little more in some crafting areas. Right now hand lettering and calligraphy are on my radar, as well as pulling out the old rubber stamps to start making cards again.
- Finally, reading. I absolutely love to read and really hope to squeeze more of that into my life.
Well there it is, finally a blog post. Now here's to hoping I don't wait another year to write again!
Saturday, January 30, 2016
#MTBoS - Questioning about Polynomial Functions
The MTBoS blogging initiative this week is about questioning strategies in class. This is an area that I know I need to improve upon. This year I have really been focusing on trying to be more of a facilitator and not such a lecturer in class. I know I have a tendency to talk too much and to spoon feed my students too much. I really want to talk less and make them think and discuss more. I want to ask the right kinds of questions to make them really think and probe each other. Baby steps, I keep telling myself. I know I can't totally revamp every lesson, especially with incorporating a new curriculum in our district this year, so I am making small changes here and there, with the hopes of adding new ideas each year.
Enter our polynomial functions unit. In the past, I have simply given notes to my students on all the ins and outs of polynomial functions. I didn't want to do that this year. I really wanted them to look at the equations and the graphs and figure out the patterns they saw on their own. I stumbled upon Dylan Kanes post about Polynomial Tasks and really liked his Characteristics in a Table idea, so took that and revamped it to my needs.
After deciding what I wanted them to find in a table, I then asked questions that would hopefully drive them to discover what they needed to know. I tried to use questions that started with "What do you notice?" and "What pattern do you see...?" The day was amazing. I spoke very little. I listened a lot and they talked a lot.
I'll discuss more of the lesson itself later, but what made this day so amazing is that the questioning strategies I chose to use really worked. Instead of telling them to notice something, asked them what they noticed and you know what? They ended up noticing and figuring out all of the information I would have given them in a set of lecture notes. I have to say, it was probably my favorite lesson of the year.
I really want to get better at asking the right questions, and do it more often than I currently do.
#MTBoS - Favorite Review Game
As part of the MTBoS Blogging initiative, I'm going to share one of my favorite games to play with my students when reviewing. I'm a little late on this post, but wanted to share anyway.
The game is called relay race and it works almost like the relay races you used to play in gym class as a kid. I arrange the kids in rows and each row represents a team. I let the teams pick out a name to represent themselves and we put the team names on the board to keep track of points. Each student has a small whiteboard and a marker. I have a set of cards with the questions or problems on them, with the same questions/card for each row. For example if I have 6 rows in my classroom, I would have 6 cards of each question.
The game starts by me putting the first question card on the first desk of each row, face down. The first person in each row is not allowed to turn the card over until I say go. When I say go, the first person in the row looks at the question and writes down all important information they need to solve on their white board, then passes the card to the person behind them. Students are told to not start working on the problem until they have passed the card to the next person in their row, so that time is not wasted. The second person in the row then proceeds to write down the information for the problem on their white board, and then pass to the third person in the row. By the time the last person in the row receives the card, everyone else in their row has seen the problem and is working on the problem. As students finish the problem, I tell them to keep their board covered so others cannot see their answer, as sharing answers results in a team penalty.
The round is over when the one of the students who is last in their row is finished and stands up. Everyone now has to put their markers down and the round is over. I then have all the students hold up their white boards and I give a point for each correct answer in their row. I keep a key for the questions on a clipboard for quick checking after each round. Points are tallied on the front board.
For the next round, the students that were last in their row now come to the front and are first in their row, everyone else moves back one seat. This assures that it is a different person who is last in the row each time, eliminating any complaints about how the slowest person is last,etc. I also do random bonus rounds which award 2X the points or 3X the points to keep things lively and to give hope to those teams that have gotten themselves really behind. There is also a punishment for sharing answers, the team loses all the current points that they have. This keeps them pretty honest.
My kids absolutely love this game and it works for a variety of topics from solving systems, to solving equations, to graphing parabolas, etc. I usually prepare about 12-16 questions, depending on the topic and that always lasts for the 50 minute class period.
Hope you enjoy!
The game is called relay race and it works almost like the relay races you used to play in gym class as a kid. I arrange the kids in rows and each row represents a team. I let the teams pick out a name to represent themselves and we put the team names on the board to keep track of points. Each student has a small whiteboard and a marker. I have a set of cards with the questions or problems on them, with the same questions/card for each row. For example if I have 6 rows in my classroom, I would have 6 cards of each question.
The game starts by me putting the first question card on the first desk of each row, face down. The first person in each row is not allowed to turn the card over until I say go. When I say go, the first person in the row looks at the question and writes down all important information they need to solve on their white board, then passes the card to the person behind them. Students are told to not start working on the problem until they have passed the card to the next person in their row, so that time is not wasted. The second person in the row then proceeds to write down the information for the problem on their white board, and then pass to the third person in the row. By the time the last person in the row receives the card, everyone else in their row has seen the problem and is working on the problem. As students finish the problem, I tell them to keep their board covered so others cannot see their answer, as sharing answers results in a team penalty.
The round is over when the one of the students who is last in their row is finished and stands up. Everyone now has to put their markers down and the round is over. I then have all the students hold up their white boards and I give a point for each correct answer in their row. I keep a key for the questions on a clipboard for quick checking after each round. Points are tallied on the front board.
For the next round, the students that were last in their row now come to the front and are first in their row, everyone else moves back one seat. This assures that it is a different person who is last in the row each time, eliminating any complaints about how the slowest person is last,etc. I also do random bonus rounds which award 2X the points or 3X the points to keep things lively and to give hope to those teams that have gotten themselves really behind. There is also a punishment for sharing answers, the team loses all the current points that they have. This keeps them pretty honest.
My kids absolutely love this game and it works for a variety of topics from solving systems, to solving equations, to graphing parabolas, etc. I usually prepare about 12-16 questions, depending on the topic and that always lasts for the 50 minute class period.
Hope you enjoy!
Thursday, January 14, 2016
A Day in the Life of Me
As part of the #MTBoS blogging initiative, I get to share with you a little glimpse into my life. Don't get too excited.
5:15 a.m. Awakened by husband getting up to go to the gym. I always try to go back to sleep, but my mind starts turning about the day ahead and it usually doesn't happen.
5:45 a.m. Decide not to wait for my alarm and just go ahead and get the day started.
5:50 a.m. Shower, dress, make-up and hair.
6:20 a.m. Move to the kitchen and grab some coffee while contemplating breakfast. Would like my usual smoothie, but we have only one banana and I know hubs will want a protein smoothie after the gym, so I leave that for him and grab yogurt and granola bar.
6:40 a.m. Pack up a lunch of leftovers from the night before, more coffee to go and grab my bags and head out the door.
7:00 a.m. Arrive in the parking lot of school to find only one other car besides the night custodian's car. Coach B is always the first to arrive at school. No matter how early I get there, I have never beat him.
7:05 a.m. Arrive in my classroom and turn on all my lamps, my Scentsy and my light up letter D. Fire up the computer and get logged in. Put my lunch in the little fridge I keep behind my desk, lock my purse in my tall filing cabinet.
7:10 a.m. Settle in to my chair open up my email, pinnacle, google drive and TweetDeck. Browse TweetDeck briefly, then move on to emails.
7:20 a.m. Snapchat my daily "Good Morning Fam" to all of my kids and hubs. My girls are big on keeping the streak going. I open up my daily agenda powerpoint that I project on the screen in my room. I add a new warm-up to my On level's agenda and add a reminder that we are having a quiz next week. On my Honor's agenda, a note to pick up the test review on the way into class, a final reminder about tomorrow's test, a reminder that homework stamp sheets are also due tomorrow. After finishing, I project 1st period's agenda and freeze the screen.
7:40 a.m. I look over today's lesson on factoring with my OL class, we are focusing on reviewing factoring that they should have learned in Alg 1 before moving onto some more challenging factoring. I print out tests that I made a couple days ago and get those ready to take to the copy room later in the day.
8:00 a.m. I head to the library to find our CTA to scan a make up semester exam for a student who went out of the country for the month of December. From there I headed to the counselor's office to discuss a new student from Spain who may have been misplaced in her math class. We decide to let her take the first semester Alg 2 exam to see if she would even be prepared to enter my class this spring before we contact the higher ups about her placement.
8:15 a.m. A quick trip to the ladies room and then back to my room to prepare for tutorials.
8:20 a.m. I have three student come in for some help on homework. Two had been absent for a couple days and the other girl just needed some clarification on last night's homework. We discussed a few problems and worked out some examples on the board together.
8:50 a.m. Students fill the hallways now, heading to first period. I take up my spot at the corner outside of the library with two other teachers and make constant reminders to kids to remove their earbuds and take their hats off. "Walk and talk" we tell them to keep them from stopping and congesting the halls. 10 minutes is entirely too long to walk the halls before school. We have some students who lap the entire building three times before finally heading to their first period class.
9:00 a.m. First period starts, Honors Algebra 2, and we are simply working on review problems in preparation for the test tomorrow. Students work together on the review, comparing their work and methods as they go. This is a very productive class that works very diligently at whatever I ask of them.
9:50 a.m First period ends and I'm back in the hall for duty. I discuss with the teacher next door how the review is going as her 2nd period is also Honors Alg 2. We talk about problems they are struggling on as we move the kids along to their next class.
9:55 a.m. Second period starts with the Pledge of Allegiance to the US Flag, the Texas Flag and then a moment of silence. A few minutes of announcements and then class begins. Students work on the warm up with their groups, then I ask volunteers to work the problems on the board. We continue discussing factoring and practice together on several types of problems. With 15 minutes left in class I hand out a Comp Check on adding, subtracting and multiplying polynomials. They are thrilled when I tell them no homework tonight.
10:47 a.m. Second period ends, back in the hall for passing periods and a little pow wow with my neighbor teachers.
10:52 a.m. Third period and back to test reviewing with my Honors kiddos. This class seems to be struggling more with special factoring patterns, so I give them lots of problems on the white board as additional practice, allowing them to explain to each other their thought process as they work they problem. We go back and forth with work on the board and work on their paper. By the end of the period my boards are filled with their work.
11:42 a.m. Third period ends and its back in the hall.
11:47 a.m. The start of 4th period and my first conference period. I work on grading the comp checks from 2nd period and updating my gradebook. I then continue to work on a Mandatory Tutorial form that I am creating for our school. We are going to try to have a uniform form that all teachers in the building use. I attend to some emails that came in that morning.
12: 15 p.m. Highlight of my day was a text message from a young gal who did her observation in my class last fall. She found out she was going to be student teaching in my district this spring and wanted the scoop on her assigned teacher. I didn't know the other teacher well enough to provide any help, but we chit chatted a bit and promised to get together soon after she started so she could fill me in on how it was going. I love her excitement!
12:35 p.m. Lunchtime! I walk to the math office where I meet 3 other teachers for lunch. We talk shop and our lives over lunch. This is precious time to me, meeting with other adults during the day. It really help to be encouraged by each other because sometimes this job is hard.
1:00 p.m. Lunch ends and we move on to TAD tutorial time. This has been a new program this year and a miserable failure. Because of that we are going to be implementing a new system in just two weeks, Block Lunch. Another member of the Professional Learning Team and myself spend the next 30 minutes going to two different classes to do a presentation on the soon to be coming Block Lunch. We go over what it is, what the student expectations are, what kind of offerings will be available to students during that time, etc. We have been visiting TAD classes for the last week as part of a team that is training the rest of the campus to prepare for Block Lunch. Everyone is very excited about the new plan. Students will get a full hour for lunch and to attend tutorials or club meetings or to play ball in the gym, etc. We are giving student's choice in how they spend that time. Everyone is super excited about the change. Three other schools in our district have started this schedule successfully, so we are hoping the transition on our campus goes smoothly.
1:30 p.m. Another passing period and hall monitoring.
1: 35 p.m. 5th Period begins. Another Honors Alg 2 class reviewing for a test. I have a couple students who missed class earlier in the week, so I try to spend some time catching them up. Fewer questions from this class, and more groups working together on the review problems.
2:25 p.m. 5th period ends and I move to the hallway to monitor the transition between classes again. Thankfully no excitement today.
2:30 p.m. 6th period and all of the math department is off together. Today the Algebra 1 team meets and I see in on the meeting to offer feedback and monitor how things are going in those classes. Our district math support arrives and sits in on the meeting too. We discuss plans for the next few days and ways that we can meet those kids that are more advanced in our classes when we have 40-50% Sped kids and CMIT kids in these classes. It's a constant struggle to reach the low low ones without cheating the higher ones of a challenging education. We discussed possible ways to differentiate, and threw out a few ideas on things to try.
3:20 p.m. End of meeting and end of 6th period. I stay behind in the math office to meet with our district support gal, Karen. We discuss the new math teachers in our building this year, there are five of them, and how they are progressing. We discuss ways to encourage them and offer support.
4:00 p.m. Karen leaves the building to beat the after school rush and I return to my classroom to work on plans for our next unit. I realize then that I didn't get my copies made, but there isn't enough time now before tutorials.
4:15 p.m. School ends and a large group of students begin to drift into my room. It's the day before a test, so I have more than the usual tutorial attendees. Some just want a quiet place to work where I am available if they have a question. Other's are there for specific questions on the review. Other's are there to listen to everyone else and see if I slip up and share something specific about the test tomorrow. The other Honors Alg 2 teacher has hall duty this afternoon, so I have a mixture of her students and my students.
5:30 p.m. I still have quite a few kids in the room working. I begin to rearrange the desks in my room to rows to be ready for the test tomorrow morning. I stop occasionally to answer a question or two, but most of those that are left are the high achieving kids who don't know when to stop. I enjoy bantering back and forth with them and then throwing up some really challenging questions to try and stump them, but they are not quitters. The keep at it until they get it, sometimes collectively. They will all make almost perfect scores on the test tomorrow, I am sure of it.
6:00 p.m. I tell the last little group that it's time to close up shop as I have some things to do before I head home. I remember that I still have a date with the copier after I everyone leaves.
6:10 p.m I finally make it to the copy room and start coping my four versions of the test for all the Honors classes. I catch up on social media while the copier hums.
6:30 p.m I am finally done copying and quickly head back to my room to lock up the copies and gather my things to go home.
6:40 p.m I'm out of the building and in the car. It's dark as usual.
7:00 p.m I arrive home to taco night. My two girls that are still living at home are gone for the evening. One is at youth group, the other at volleyball practice. My son and hubs are sitting at the kitchen table eating. I fix myself a plate and join them. We catch each other up on our days while we eat.
7:30 p.m. Dinner is over, time to clean up the kitchen. There are dishes from lunch and dinner. We are two blocks from the Senior High School with off campus lunch, so my kids and their friends often come to our place for lunch. With thier limited time, there's never time for clean up and so it becomes a nightly routine to clean up after a group of teenagers that drop in for lunch.
8:00 p.m. Kitchen is as clean as I'm willing to leave it and I head into the office to do a little work. I continue to plan for the upcoming unit on graphing polynomials while my hubs works at his desk beside me. At least we are spending time together, kind of. I get distracted easily with twitter. So much to learn from the #MTBoS, it's hard to stay away.
8:30 p.m. Daughter arrives home from volleyball and catches me up on her day. She's in the recruiting process, trying to find a place to play college ball. She talked to a couple college coaches on the phone today and was excited about some upcoming visits to these campuses. We've been through this once with our oldest who is playing in college now, but the excitement still gets us going. We then discuss the weekend trip we will be making to San Antonio for a tournament. I'm going to miss this next year.
9:00 p.m. Daughter moves off to the kitchen for food and I go back to twitter and very little work.
9:10 p.m. Other daughter arrives home from youth group and we discuss her day. She needs me to order books from Amazon for a class, so we hop on and get that done. I also notice that she has a browser window open on my PC with prom dresses, so we discuss that a bit.
9:30 p.m. I'm done for the day and head off to get ready for bed. Play with the puppies for a few minutes before the bedtime routine.
10:00 p.m. In bed with my puppies snuggled up next to me.
5:15 a.m. Awakened by husband getting up to go to the gym. I always try to go back to sleep, but my mind starts turning about the day ahead and it usually doesn't happen.
5:45 a.m. Decide not to wait for my alarm and just go ahead and get the day started.
5:50 a.m. Shower, dress, make-up and hair.
6:20 a.m. Move to the kitchen and grab some coffee while contemplating breakfast. Would like my usual smoothie, but we have only one banana and I know hubs will want a protein smoothie after the gym, so I leave that for him and grab yogurt and granola bar.
6:40 a.m. Pack up a lunch of leftovers from the night before, more coffee to go and grab my bags and head out the door.
7:00 a.m. Arrive in the parking lot of school to find only one other car besides the night custodian's car. Coach B is always the first to arrive at school. No matter how early I get there, I have never beat him.
7:05 a.m. Arrive in my classroom and turn on all my lamps, my Scentsy and my light up letter D. Fire up the computer and get logged in. Put my lunch in the little fridge I keep behind my desk, lock my purse in my tall filing cabinet.
7:10 a.m. Settle in to my chair open up my email, pinnacle, google drive and TweetDeck. Browse TweetDeck briefly, then move on to emails.
7:20 a.m. Snapchat my daily "Good Morning Fam" to all of my kids and hubs. My girls are big on keeping the streak going. I open up my daily agenda powerpoint that I project on the screen in my room. I add a new warm-up to my On level's agenda and add a reminder that we are having a quiz next week. On my Honor's agenda, a note to pick up the test review on the way into class, a final reminder about tomorrow's test, a reminder that homework stamp sheets are also due tomorrow. After finishing, I project 1st period's agenda and freeze the screen.
7:40 a.m. I look over today's lesson on factoring with my OL class, we are focusing on reviewing factoring that they should have learned in Alg 1 before moving onto some more challenging factoring. I print out tests that I made a couple days ago and get those ready to take to the copy room later in the day.
8:00 a.m. I head to the library to find our CTA to scan a make up semester exam for a student who went out of the country for the month of December. From there I headed to the counselor's office to discuss a new student from Spain who may have been misplaced in her math class. We decide to let her take the first semester Alg 2 exam to see if she would even be prepared to enter my class this spring before we contact the higher ups about her placement.
8:15 a.m. A quick trip to the ladies room and then back to my room to prepare for tutorials.
8:20 a.m. I have three student come in for some help on homework. Two had been absent for a couple days and the other girl just needed some clarification on last night's homework. We discussed a few problems and worked out some examples on the board together.
8:50 a.m. Students fill the hallways now, heading to first period. I take up my spot at the corner outside of the library with two other teachers and make constant reminders to kids to remove their earbuds and take their hats off. "Walk and talk" we tell them to keep them from stopping and congesting the halls. 10 minutes is entirely too long to walk the halls before school. We have some students who lap the entire building three times before finally heading to their first period class.
9:00 a.m. First period starts, Honors Algebra 2, and we are simply working on review problems in preparation for the test tomorrow. Students work together on the review, comparing their work and methods as they go. This is a very productive class that works very diligently at whatever I ask of them.
9:50 a.m First period ends and I'm back in the hall for duty. I discuss with the teacher next door how the review is going as her 2nd period is also Honors Alg 2. We talk about problems they are struggling on as we move the kids along to their next class.
9:55 a.m. Second period starts with the Pledge of Allegiance to the US Flag, the Texas Flag and then a moment of silence. A few minutes of announcements and then class begins. Students work on the warm up with their groups, then I ask volunteers to work the problems on the board. We continue discussing factoring and practice together on several types of problems. With 15 minutes left in class I hand out a Comp Check on adding, subtracting and multiplying polynomials. They are thrilled when I tell them no homework tonight.
10:47 a.m. Second period ends, back in the hall for passing periods and a little pow wow with my neighbor teachers.
10:52 a.m. Third period and back to test reviewing with my Honors kiddos. This class seems to be struggling more with special factoring patterns, so I give them lots of problems on the white board as additional practice, allowing them to explain to each other their thought process as they work they problem. We go back and forth with work on the board and work on their paper. By the end of the period my boards are filled with their work.
11:42 a.m. Third period ends and its back in the hall.
11:47 a.m. The start of 4th period and my first conference period. I work on grading the comp checks from 2nd period and updating my gradebook. I then continue to work on a Mandatory Tutorial form that I am creating for our school. We are going to try to have a uniform form that all teachers in the building use. I attend to some emails that came in that morning.
12: 15 p.m. Highlight of my day was a text message from a young gal who did her observation in my class last fall. She found out she was going to be student teaching in my district this spring and wanted the scoop on her assigned teacher. I didn't know the other teacher well enough to provide any help, but we chit chatted a bit and promised to get together soon after she started so she could fill me in on how it was going. I love her excitement!
12:35 p.m. Lunchtime! I walk to the math office where I meet 3 other teachers for lunch. We talk shop and our lives over lunch. This is precious time to me, meeting with other adults during the day. It really help to be encouraged by each other because sometimes this job is hard.
1:00 p.m. Lunch ends and we move on to TAD tutorial time. This has been a new program this year and a miserable failure. Because of that we are going to be implementing a new system in just two weeks, Block Lunch. Another member of the Professional Learning Team and myself spend the next 30 minutes going to two different classes to do a presentation on the soon to be coming Block Lunch. We go over what it is, what the student expectations are, what kind of offerings will be available to students during that time, etc. We have been visiting TAD classes for the last week as part of a team that is training the rest of the campus to prepare for Block Lunch. Everyone is very excited about the new plan. Students will get a full hour for lunch and to attend tutorials or club meetings or to play ball in the gym, etc. We are giving student's choice in how they spend that time. Everyone is super excited about the change. Three other schools in our district have started this schedule successfully, so we are hoping the transition on our campus goes smoothly.
1:30 p.m. Another passing period and hall monitoring.
1: 35 p.m. 5th Period begins. Another Honors Alg 2 class reviewing for a test. I have a couple students who missed class earlier in the week, so I try to spend some time catching them up. Fewer questions from this class, and more groups working together on the review problems.
2:25 p.m. 5th period ends and I move to the hallway to monitor the transition between classes again. Thankfully no excitement today.
2:30 p.m. 6th period and all of the math department is off together. Today the Algebra 1 team meets and I see in on the meeting to offer feedback and monitor how things are going in those classes. Our district math support arrives and sits in on the meeting too. We discuss plans for the next few days and ways that we can meet those kids that are more advanced in our classes when we have 40-50% Sped kids and CMIT kids in these classes. It's a constant struggle to reach the low low ones without cheating the higher ones of a challenging education. We discussed possible ways to differentiate, and threw out a few ideas on things to try.
3:20 p.m. End of meeting and end of 6th period. I stay behind in the math office to meet with our district support gal, Karen. We discuss the new math teachers in our building this year, there are five of them, and how they are progressing. We discuss ways to encourage them and offer support.
4:00 p.m. Karen leaves the building to beat the after school rush and I return to my classroom to work on plans for our next unit. I realize then that I didn't get my copies made, but there isn't enough time now before tutorials.
4:15 p.m. School ends and a large group of students begin to drift into my room. It's the day before a test, so I have more than the usual tutorial attendees. Some just want a quiet place to work where I am available if they have a question. Other's are there for specific questions on the review. Other's are there to listen to everyone else and see if I slip up and share something specific about the test tomorrow. The other Honors Alg 2 teacher has hall duty this afternoon, so I have a mixture of her students and my students.
5:30 p.m. I still have quite a few kids in the room working. I begin to rearrange the desks in my room to rows to be ready for the test tomorrow morning. I stop occasionally to answer a question or two, but most of those that are left are the high achieving kids who don't know when to stop. I enjoy bantering back and forth with them and then throwing up some really challenging questions to try and stump them, but they are not quitters. The keep at it until they get it, sometimes collectively. They will all make almost perfect scores on the test tomorrow, I am sure of it.
6:00 p.m. I tell the last little group that it's time to close up shop as I have some things to do before I head home. I remember that I still have a date with the copier after I everyone leaves.
6:10 p.m I finally make it to the copy room and start coping my four versions of the test for all the Honors classes. I catch up on social media while the copier hums.
6:30 p.m I am finally done copying and quickly head back to my room to lock up the copies and gather my things to go home.
6:40 p.m I'm out of the building and in the car. It's dark as usual.
7:00 p.m I arrive home to taco night. My two girls that are still living at home are gone for the evening. One is at youth group, the other at volleyball practice. My son and hubs are sitting at the kitchen table eating. I fix myself a plate and join them. We catch each other up on our days while we eat.
7:30 p.m. Dinner is over, time to clean up the kitchen. There are dishes from lunch and dinner. We are two blocks from the Senior High School with off campus lunch, so my kids and their friends often come to our place for lunch. With thier limited time, there's never time for clean up and so it becomes a nightly routine to clean up after a group of teenagers that drop in for lunch.
8:00 p.m. Kitchen is as clean as I'm willing to leave it and I head into the office to do a little work. I continue to plan for the upcoming unit on graphing polynomials while my hubs works at his desk beside me. At least we are spending time together, kind of. I get distracted easily with twitter. So much to learn from the #MTBoS, it's hard to stay away.
8:30 p.m. Daughter arrives home from volleyball and catches me up on her day. She's in the recruiting process, trying to find a place to play college ball. She talked to a couple college coaches on the phone today and was excited about some upcoming visits to these campuses. We've been through this once with our oldest who is playing in college now, but the excitement still gets us going. We then discuss the weekend trip we will be making to San Antonio for a tournament. I'm going to miss this next year.
9:00 p.m. Daughter moves off to the kitchen for food and I go back to twitter and very little work.
9:10 p.m. Other daughter arrives home from youth group and we discuss her day. She needs me to order books from Amazon for a class, so we hop on and get that done. I also notice that she has a browser window open on my PC with prom dresses, so we discuss that a bit.
9:30 p.m. I'm done for the day and head off to get ready for bed. Play with the puppies for a few minutes before the bedtime routine.
10:00 p.m. In bed with my puppies snuggled up next to me.
Sunday, January 3, 2016
#MTBoS Blogging Initiative
I, Bonnie Davis, resolve to blog in 2016 in order to open my classroom up and share my thoughts with other teachers. I hope to accomplish this goal by participating in the January Blogging Initiation hosted by Explore MTBoS.
You, too, could join in on this exciting adventure. All you have to do is dust off your blog and get ready for the first prompt to arrive January 10th!
Let's make it a great start to the new year!
#MTBoS12days - Classroom Wishlist
I really love my classroom. I've been at my school for 2 years now and am very happy with the room I inherited from the previous teacher. There are a couple things that would make it even better though.
- iPads for everyone! Ok, I'd be happy with one for every two students. There are so many cool things I've seen posted that I want to try, but not having laptops or iPad has been limiting. We do tons with our personal devices, but I do have a few students that I need to accommodate because they don't have a phone or don't have room for another app.
- Tables and chairs, instead of fixed desks with seats. I want to be able to have those days that we push the tables to the side and just use the chairs or even the floor. The desks with connected chairs are so cumbersome. Narrow tables like these would be awesome.
- Windows! I'm in the middle of the builidng with no natural light. I would love to have some natural light pouring into my room. Might just get me out of there earlier too as I'd have a sense of how late it really was.
- Interactive whiteboard. I've never had one, but they look really cool. Definitely not a need, but would be nice.
#MTBoS12days - What I Want to Improve On this Coming Semester
Oh where do I begin? I always feel like there's a ton I can improve on, to the point that I get overwhelmed when I begin to think about all of the areas that could use some improvement. So let me try not to send myself into a state of inadequacy the day before I return to work. I'll try to focus on a few areas.
I only give 5-8 problems at a time, and the grade area is for students to keep track of their own progress. I don't actually take the grade in the grade column, its for their own record of how they are did on that lesson. I plan to collect these stamp sheets on test days and use these when discussing with a student the opportunity to retest or do corrections if they do poorly on the test.
I'm sure there are a lot more areas I could improve upon, but I'm going to focus on these three for now.
Homework -
I'm going to start using a Stamp system for homework checks. I'm using a version that came from a friend in the district, Leah Cramer, but I'm revamping it a bit. I love how Pam Wilson (@pamjwilson) uses a color coding method for student feedback, so want to incorporate that idea. I also plan to have a reflection area on the back of the stamp sheet so that students can jot down important things from the lesson that they will need to remember for tests and quizzes. Here's what I've come up with so far.
Planning -
Another area that I would like to improve upon is timely planning. I typically start out the semester way ahead, but within a few weeks I always feel like I'm scrambling to put things together for lessons. I want to stay on top of this more this semester. I'd like to get my assessments done before we even start the unit, which is always a goal, but by mid semester it falls by the wayside.Relationships -
I think I have pretty good relationships with my students in my classroom, but I want to make an effort to be involved with them outside of my classroom. I want to get better at attending some of their extracurricular things like band concerts, sporting events, theater, etc. I always have good intentions of attending these types of activities, but when the event finally comes around, I can find some excuse to go home and not stay around to attend. I know how much it means to the kids for their teachers to be there, so I want to really make an effort to do this.I'm sure there are a lot more areas I could improve upon, but I'm going to focus on these three for now.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
#MTBoS12days - Tried and True Strategies
So the title says "Strategies", but I think I am going to share just one. This one strategy has transformed how my kids work together in their groups. It has turned group work into great strategy sessions that involve lots of great math discussion and problem solving.
The official name I give my kids for this activity is "Performance Tasks." These actually started as a result of our new curriculum this year and the first performance tasks I used actually came straight from our book. The strategy comes more from how I have them actually do the performance task.
It looks like this. I create the performance task for the end of a Module (our book is broken into Modules with each unit consisting of 2-3 modules, each module is 3-4 lessons). It's basically just a multi-step word problem that incorporates skills from all of the lessons. I copy the Performance task onto four different colored papers so that in each group of four students they all have a different color. I tell them that the performance task counts as a quiz, and they must work together and agree on what to write down as far as work and their thinking as they work the problem. They should have some sort of graphic or picture that represents the problem or their thinking and justification for their answer. I stress that each one of them must understand the problem and contribute to working the problem.
Then I tell them that they must make sure that each paper has everything they discussed and worked on because at the end I will only choose one color to grade and the entire group will get the grade of the color that I choose. I also tell them that whoever's paper I chose must be able to explain to me and defend their thinking for that problem. It's truly magic. The discussion that has occurred over these performance tasks has been amazing. If someone in their group doesn't understand, the others are teaching them until they get it. They argue and bicker over what should be included in the justification and what should be left out. They look at each other's graphs and discuss them and how they should look.
At the end of the period, after I pick up their papers, I put the four colors in a bucket and have a student draw the color to be graded in front of the class. This way there is no question about how I chose the color to be graded.
I absolutely love these days that we do performance tasks. I have 100% participation in class, great math discussions and peer teaching going on and the added bonus of only having to grade one fourth of the papers I would normally have to grade.
Let me know if you try this and how it works for you.
The official name I give my kids for this activity is "Performance Tasks." These actually started as a result of our new curriculum this year and the first performance tasks I used actually came straight from our book. The strategy comes more from how I have them actually do the performance task.
It looks like this. I create the performance task for the end of a Module (our book is broken into Modules with each unit consisting of 2-3 modules, each module is 3-4 lessons). It's basically just a multi-step word problem that incorporates skills from all of the lessons. I copy the Performance task onto four different colored papers so that in each group of four students they all have a different color. I tell them that the performance task counts as a quiz, and they must work together and agree on what to write down as far as work and their thinking as they work the problem. They should have some sort of graphic or picture that represents the problem or their thinking and justification for their answer. I stress that each one of them must understand the problem and contribute to working the problem.
Then I tell them that they must make sure that each paper has everything they discussed and worked on because at the end I will only choose one color to grade and the entire group will get the grade of the color that I choose. I also tell them that whoever's paper I chose must be able to explain to me and defend their thinking for that problem. It's truly magic. The discussion that has occurred over these performance tasks has been amazing. If someone in their group doesn't understand, the others are teaching them until they get it. They argue and bicker over what should be included in the justification and what should be left out. They look at each other's graphs and discuss them and how they should look.
At the end of the period, after I pick up their papers, I put the four colors in a bucket and have a student draw the color to be graded in front of the class. This way there is no question about how I chose the color to be graded.
I absolutely love these days that we do performance tasks. I have 100% participation in class, great math discussions and peer teaching going on and the added bonus of only having to grade one fourth of the papers I would normally have to grade.
Let me know if you try this and how it works for you.
#MTBoS12days - Semester Reflection: Start, Stop, Continue
Time to reflect on the last semester.
What to Start...
I want to start being more consistent with an opening activity when the kids walk in the room. I want that activity to set the pace for the rest of the period by getting the students thinking. Some days I have a warm-up for them to start, on other days I have procedural directions. I really like the idea that many of my twitter math peeps use of a different activity every day, but consistency on what is done each day of the week.
I'm going start a new homework checking procedure using a stamp page. I'm in the process of designing it now, but I got the idea from a friend in the district, Leah Cramer, who has used this in the past. The students keep up with the page which has a stamp for each homework assignment. On the back there is a place for reflection after each lesson which the students keep up with as lessons are completed. The idea is for them to use the reflection part to help study for the unit test. The stamp sheet is then turned in on test day and the homework is recorded in the grade book.
I'd also like to start, in some form or fashion, spiraling my material. I'm hoping that I can incorporate that some into my warm-ups.
What to Stop...
I'm going to stop having my kids turn in their homework electronically through our Google Classroom. Although I love some aspects of this, the kids hate it. In a perfect world where all kids turned their homework in on time, it would be great. I've found it incredible difficult to keep up with all those kids who turn theirs in late. I'm found that I would have to go back through the assignments multiple times to catch all those late kids. We also had some difficulty with images not showing up or documents being blank. I may give it a try again in the future, but if I do, I will do it at the very start of the year and have a day of training on how to do it and some better procedure for those kids that turn it in late.
What to Continue...
I'm going to continue using Google Forms and Flubaroo for warm-ups and Quizalize for quick in class assessments. I've seen some posts on Quizziz too, so I'd like to try that and compare to Quizalize.
I'm going to continue using our Google Classroom to post notes and assignments for students who forget or miss class.
I'm going to continue giving my kids ways to self check as they are working in class. In the fall semester I used some great partner activities as well as my solving scramble, which I use a lot now. It has really freed me from the dreaded question "Did I do this right?" and allowed me to keep moving around the room.
What to Start...
I want to start being more consistent with an opening activity when the kids walk in the room. I want that activity to set the pace for the rest of the period by getting the students thinking. Some days I have a warm-up for them to start, on other days I have procedural directions. I really like the idea that many of my twitter math peeps use of a different activity every day, but consistency on what is done each day of the week.
I'm going start a new homework checking procedure using a stamp page. I'm in the process of designing it now, but I got the idea from a friend in the district, Leah Cramer, who has used this in the past. The students keep up with the page which has a stamp for each homework assignment. On the back there is a place for reflection after each lesson which the students keep up with as lessons are completed. The idea is for them to use the reflection part to help study for the unit test. The stamp sheet is then turned in on test day and the homework is recorded in the grade book.
I'd also like to start, in some form or fashion, spiraling my material. I'm hoping that I can incorporate that some into my warm-ups.
What to Stop...
I'm going to stop having my kids turn in their homework electronically through our Google Classroom. Although I love some aspects of this, the kids hate it. In a perfect world where all kids turned their homework in on time, it would be great. I've found it incredible difficult to keep up with all those kids who turn theirs in late. I'm found that I would have to go back through the assignments multiple times to catch all those late kids. We also had some difficulty with images not showing up or documents being blank. I may give it a try again in the future, but if I do, I will do it at the very start of the year and have a day of training on how to do it and some better procedure for those kids that turn it in late.
What to Continue...
I'm going to continue using Google Forms and Flubaroo for warm-ups and Quizalize for quick in class assessments. I've seen some posts on Quizziz too, so I'd like to try that and compare to Quizalize.
I'm going to continue using our Google Classroom to post notes and assignments for students who forget or miss class.
I'm going to continue giving my kids ways to self check as they are working in class. In the fall semester I used some great partner activities as well as my solving scramble, which I use a lot now. It has really freed me from the dreaded question "Did I do this right?" and allowed me to keep moving around the room.
#MTBoS12Days - Currently Reading...
I love, love, love to read. Sadly, I don't read as much as I would like to because by the time I crawl into bed at night I can barely keep my eyes open these days. When I do have a spare moment, I'm usually reading blogs looking for ideas to use in my classroom instead of pleasure reading. I love reading fiction, especially medical mysteries and spy & espionage books. I wish I enjoyed reading non fiction more. I always have good intentions of reading through a non fiction book, but more often than not, I never make it completely through the book. I'll read particular chapters and skim other areas, but struggle to read it in its entirety.
A book I've recently read - "Coming Home" by Mariah Stewart. This is one of my favorite authors who has written some really great suspense/mystery novels, but this particular book is a completely different genre. It's more of a romantic fiction along the lines of Nicholas Sparks, which I occasionally read, but completely different from the other books I've read by her. I was intrigued to see that she was writing books like this and had to see for myself if it was something I liked. I found that I did like it and ended up reading the first three books in this series she wrote. The rest of the series is on my list for next summer when I have more time to read.
A book I'm currently reading - "Resistant" by Michael Palmer. He's my absolute favorite medical mystery author. Highly recommend any of his books if you like medical mysteries.
A book I'd like to read - Just got back from watching the STAR WARS movie and one of the movie previews was for a movie called "The 5th Wave." The story line sounded intriguing and when I saw that it was based upon a book, I decided that the book would probably be much better than the movie. It's sitting in my Amazon shopping cart right now.
A book I've recently read - "Coming Home" by Mariah Stewart. This is one of my favorite authors who has written some really great suspense/mystery novels, but this particular book is a completely different genre. It's more of a romantic fiction along the lines of Nicholas Sparks, which I occasionally read, but completely different from the other books I've read by her. I was intrigued to see that she was writing books like this and had to see for myself if it was something I liked. I found that I did like it and ended up reading the first three books in this series she wrote. The rest of the series is on my list for next summer when I have more time to read.
A book I'm currently reading - "Resistant" by Michael Palmer. He's my absolute favorite medical mystery author. Highly recommend any of his books if you like medical mysteries.
A book I'd like to read - Just got back from watching the STAR WARS movie and one of the movie previews was for a movie called "The 5th Wave." The story line sounded intriguing and when I saw that it was based upon a book, I decided that the book would probably be much better than the movie. It's sitting in my Amazon shopping cart right now.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
#MTBoS12days - How I Relax and Rejuvenate over the break!
It may not sound very relaxing, but the biggest stress reliever for me is organizing. With 3 teenagers living at home, my house gets crazy cluttered during the semester. I spend more time working on lesson plans and teaching than I do on my house and as a result it's utter chaos by Christmas break. Once break starts, the de-cluttering begins too. I usually start with my desk at home, then move on to my closet, then my kitchen pantry and so on. By the time I go back to school, I feel like I've accomplished something at home and hope that the neatness lasts at least a couple weeks.
After organizing, my next stress reliever is baking. This I'm able to do throughout the school year, so it's not just an event that takes place over the break. I love to bake! Warming up the kitchen with all sorts of yummy smells puts me in my happy place. Pies, cakes, cookies, brownies, and bread are my favorites.
Kind of funny that my two greatest stress relievers actually involve more work. I don't mind though, it doesn't seem like work when I'm doing it. What is your go to stress reliever during the break?
After organizing, my next stress reliever is baking. This I'm able to do throughout the school year, so it's not just an event that takes place over the break. I love to bake! Warming up the kitchen with all sorts of yummy smells puts me in my happy place. Pies, cakes, cookies, brownies, and bread are my favorites.
Kind of funny that my two greatest stress relievers actually involve more work. I don't mind though, it doesn't seem like work when I'm doing it. What is your go to stress reliever during the break?
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
#MTBoS12days - Semester Success
There have been a lot of first and seconds for me this year and all in all I'd count it as a pretty successful first semester for the year. This is my second year at my school and second year back teaching high school math, but my first as math department chair at my school. This was my first year to be involved in curriculum writing in my district and first year to be part of several leadership teams on my campus. To say that I have been dragged out of my comfort zone is an understatement.
I consider myself a worker bee. I love being behind the scenes and doing what I love doing, teaching and planning, so it has been a little uncomfortable to be out in front of my teacher friends, leading. I've gotten good feedback from some of the projects I've been involved in, so I must be doing okay, even though I feel inadequate at times.
In my classroom, I have seen many successes this year as well. Lots of failures and areas for improvement too, but today I am focusing on success.
Success #1 - Incorporating technology into some of my lessons. We are not a 1:1 campus, but most kids have their own devices so my goal was to get my students to use them in class. I don't want to be one of those teachers that constantly harps on her kids to put their cell phones away. Cell phones are a fact of life for these kids and I'd rather spend my time teaching them ways to use them for school than punishing them for sneaking a look at a text or a post. What I've found is if I treat them as if its no big deal that they have them out on their desks, then it really does end up being no big deal. Sure there's an occasional text message sent or email checked, but for the most part I keep them busy and it becomes a non issue.
Being BYOD can be limiting sometimes, but we have had some great lessons using Desmos and Geogebra. I've used Quzalize and Google Forms for formative assessments. I'm using Google Classroom for all of my classes this year and have tried turning in electronic homework with on again, off again success.
Success #2 - Twitter and Blogs to extend my professional learning. I am still in awe of the vast knowledge available to me as a teacher through twitter and blogs. I would read an occasional blog before this year and had a twitter account that I rarely used, but this year I've finally figured out what those two things can do for me. Getting active in the #MTBoS has really transformed my teaching. The challenging part has been finding a system to organize all of the information I am finding. When I find a great lesson idea for something that I don't teach until April, how do I help myself remember that idea. I think I've figured out something that is working for me, but I'm sure this will be evolving over time too. Any of you with great ideas on this one, please chime in here.
Success #3 - Student Relationships. For whatever reason I feel like I have developed some great relationships with my students really quickly. Usually about March or April I can look back and see that I've finally won all of my kids over, but this year I am already feeling like I'm at that place with them. I have almost no discipline issues and my kids work for me. It doesn't matter what silly or rigorous activity I plan, they are always great about playing along and giving it their best. As a result I'm usually in awe of the conversations that are going on about math in my room. It's a real boost when I have other teachers asking me about an activity we did in my class because my kids were still talking about it when they got to their class. I hope to continue building onto these relationships with the kids as it makes taking risks and trying new things with them easier.
I'm looking forward to an even better second semester too!
I consider myself a worker bee. I love being behind the scenes and doing what I love doing, teaching and planning, so it has been a little uncomfortable to be out in front of my teacher friends, leading. I've gotten good feedback from some of the projects I've been involved in, so I must be doing okay, even though I feel inadequate at times.
In my classroom, I have seen many successes this year as well. Lots of failures and areas for improvement too, but today I am focusing on success.
Success #1 - Incorporating technology into some of my lessons. We are not a 1:1 campus, but most kids have their own devices so my goal was to get my students to use them in class. I don't want to be one of those teachers that constantly harps on her kids to put their cell phones away. Cell phones are a fact of life for these kids and I'd rather spend my time teaching them ways to use them for school than punishing them for sneaking a look at a text or a post. What I've found is if I treat them as if its no big deal that they have them out on their desks, then it really does end up being no big deal. Sure there's an occasional text message sent or email checked, but for the most part I keep them busy and it becomes a non issue.
Being BYOD can be limiting sometimes, but we have had some great lessons using Desmos and Geogebra. I've used Quzalize and Google Forms for formative assessments. I'm using Google Classroom for all of my classes this year and have tried turning in electronic homework with on again, off again success.
Success #2 - Twitter and Blogs to extend my professional learning. I am still in awe of the vast knowledge available to me as a teacher through twitter and blogs. I would read an occasional blog before this year and had a twitter account that I rarely used, but this year I've finally figured out what those two things can do for me. Getting active in the #MTBoS has really transformed my teaching. The challenging part has been finding a system to organize all of the information I am finding. When I find a great lesson idea for something that I don't teach until April, how do I help myself remember that idea. I think I've figured out something that is working for me, but I'm sure this will be evolving over time too. Any of you with great ideas on this one, please chime in here.
Success #3 - Student Relationships. For whatever reason I feel like I have developed some great relationships with my students really quickly. Usually about March or April I can look back and see that I've finally won all of my kids over, but this year I am already feeling like I'm at that place with them. I have almost no discipline issues and my kids work for me. It doesn't matter what silly or rigorous activity I plan, they are always great about playing along and giving it their best. As a result I'm usually in awe of the conversations that are going on about math in my room. It's a real boost when I have other teachers asking me about an activity we did in my class because my kids were still talking about it when they got to their class. I hope to continue building onto these relationships with the kids as it makes taking risks and trying new things with them easier.
I'm looking forward to an even better second semester too!
Monday, December 21, 2015
#MTBoS12days - Favorite Family Holiday Recipes
If there's one thing my family does well, it's baking. It's a tradition that has been handed down for many generations and I am continuing it on with my own girls. My sister has an amazing blog where she shares lots of family recipes as well as new recipes she's trying. My sister's three daughters have also carried on this tradition and they all post frequently about what is currently going on in their kitchens. It's not just the women though, because one of my older brothers is just as gifted in the kitchen. In fact, this Thanksgiving he prepared and sold 24 BBQ Pit Fireball Pumpkin Pies, his latest recipe hit. I'm not quite as adventurous as my brother and usually stick to the tried and true recipes handed down from my Grandmother.
Ingredients:
5 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup flour
1 tsp vanilla
powdered sugar
chocolate filling (recipe below)
Directions:
Separate eggs. Beat egg yolks until thick and lemon colored. Gradually beat in 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tsp vanilla.
In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until almost stiff. Gradually add remaining 1/2 cup sugar and beat until very stiff.
Fold yolks into whites, then fold in remaining dry ingredients.
Spread onto wax paper lined jelly roll pan.
Bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes.
Dust a dish towel with powdered sugar and turn baked cake roll onto towel. Roll up and let cool. Fill with chocolate filling and refrigerate.
Ingredients:
3/4 cup milk - scalded
1 1/2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup milk, cold
1 Tbs butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
Directions:
Scald 3/4 cup milk with chocolate. Thicken with flour. Add 1/4 cup cold milk and 1 tablespoon of butter. In a separate bowl, beat sugar, egg, salt and vanilla. Add mixture to chocolate mixture and cook over low heat until smooth and thick. Spread onto cooled cake roll.
Serves 12.
Chocolate Roll
Ingredients:
5 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup flour
1 tsp vanilla
powdered sugar
chocolate filling (recipe below)
Directions:
Separate eggs. Beat egg yolks until thick and lemon colored. Gradually beat in 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tsp vanilla.
In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until almost stiff. Gradually add remaining 1/2 cup sugar and beat until very stiff.
Fold yolks into whites, then fold in remaining dry ingredients.
Spread onto wax paper lined jelly roll pan.
Bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes.
Dust a dish towel with powdered sugar and turn baked cake roll onto towel. Roll up and let cool. Fill with chocolate filling and refrigerate.
Chocolate Roll Filling
Ingredients:
3/4 cup milk - scalded
1 1/2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup milk, cold
1 Tbs butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
Directions:
Scald 3/4 cup milk with chocolate. Thicken with flour. Add 1/4 cup cold milk and 1 tablespoon of butter. In a separate bowl, beat sugar, egg, salt and vanilla. Add mixture to chocolate mixture and cook over low heat until smooth and thick. Spread onto cooled cake roll.
Serves 12.
#MTBoS12days Yule Blog Challenge
As you can see I have not been very good about keeping up with my blog this fall. I'm hoping to do better in the spring semester. For now though I'm going to attempt @pamwilson and @druinok Yule Blog Challenge over the break. I'm hoping this will kick start my blogging going into the spring semester.
You can see Pam's original post here.
Here's a recap of the challenge, in case you want to join -
~ “My Holiday favorites” (you choose: treats & recipes to share, inexpensive gifts to give, holiday memories
~ a success story from this semester
~ How I relax and rejuvenate over the break
~ a book I’ve read… a book I’m reading… a book I want to read…
~ Reflection on last semester… What will I start, stop and continue in the new semester?
~ a tried and true task/strategy – I can always count on
~ a Moment / a-ha that challenged me as a teacher & how I handled it
~ 1 thing i want to improve next semester
~ classroom wishlist
~ looking forward to in 2016…
~ New Year Resolutions – Personal and/or professional
~ Something that makes me proud to be a – Laker, trojan, Knight, Wildcat, Eagle… etc.
Now, where do I begin?
You can see Pam's original post here.
Here's a recap of the challenge, in case you want to join -
~ “My Holiday favorites” (you choose: treats & recipes to share, inexpensive gifts to give, holiday memories
~ a success story from this semester
~ How I relax and rejuvenate over the break
~ a book I’ve read… a book I’m reading… a book I want to read…
~ Reflection on last semester… What will I start, stop and continue in the new semester?
~ a tried and true task/strategy – I can always count on
~ a Moment / a-ha that challenged me as a teacher & how I handled it
~ 1 thing i want to improve next semester
~ classroom wishlist
~ looking forward to in 2016…
~ New Year Resolutions – Personal and/or professional
~ Something that makes me proud to be a – Laker, trojan, Knight, Wildcat, Eagle… etc.
Now, where do I begin?
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