"Real Facts" Writing Activity

As I was about to throw my empty Snapple bottle into the recycling can, I read the "Real Fact" under the cap. "Real Fact" #854 - Hawaii is the only U.S. state that grows coffee. I never knew that. I threw it into the can and thought, that's a cool fact to tell my students. That's when I reached back into that can and saved that top. Now I am washing and saving all of the Snapple caps! I had to come up with some way to incorporate this in my classroom. So I created  "Real Facts" as either a Center activity or a task that students can work on when they are finished with independent work early (Fast Finishers). Now, the assignment will encourage students to read each "fact" with an incredulous mind because I'm pretty sure not all of those facts are correct. However, it gets kids thinking about different/new topics and provides them with some incentive to perhaps research a topic further. The assignment allows students to write a detailed response to the fact (we use RSSE format) and then write a creative story or essay with the genre of their choice using the fact as a prompt. The assignment has an example I created to get kids started. "Real Fact" #749 - The average housefly lives for one month. Ironically, the fact I chose to write about was easy for me because we have seen an increase in flies lately. Ugh - annoying.  

This is the story I wrote based on my "Real Fact" that is included in the product. "Real Facts" is the first product I have on TPT that is for sale and not free. It's actually my 3rd product uploaded to my store. It's not elaborate, but it's made with a determined mind and creativity :] Feel free to let me know what you think! 

I am excited to try it out in September and see what else can come from it! I know I will be buying a lot more Snapple :] 

TIME Magazines - Teaching with Pictures

 All year long I would get the TIME magazines for adults when we received our TIME FOR KIDS bundles.  I would skim through them quickly and then put them in my teacher bin. Before I knew it, I had quite a few TIME magazines cluttering my bin. From there, I would take them home and stash them in hopes that I could eventually read them. When summer started, I came up with the idea to use the pictures within them to help with instruction.

As I skimmed through the articles, I was able to cut out appropriate pictures and catch up on some of the reading :) I glued each picture to an index card and numbered them. I bought a Dollar Tree photo album and put each picture into a sleeve. I feel like there is so much I can do with this. I can teach skills like inferencing or cause and effect. Since we are working on Guided Reading and creating centers this summer - my plan is to use it as a Writing Center. Students can take out one of the numbered cards from the album and write something similar to this for each picture: 

I see...

I know...

I wonder...

I infer...

Opinion writing topic for this picture...

Persuasive writing topic for this picture...

Informational writing topic for this picture...

Narrative writing topic for this picture...

(I was inspired by another Teacher Blog which I can not remember or find now - to list different topics that could be generated from a picture for different writing genres.) 

After this, students can choose to write about the picture using the writing topic of their choice (students love choice :] ).

  

This picture was taken before 

I put the pictures on numbered 

index cards, but you get the idea. 

Classroom Management - some simple ideas that work!

With my smaller amount of experience in the classroom, I have tried a few different classroom management techniques. During student teaching, my Cooperating Teacher used the Letter System. The class votes on a class prize that they want to earn. The kids then earn letters or lose letters based on their behaviors in order to spell out that word. Once the word is spelled out completely, the class earns it! 

It worked out well, but when I was hired for my first teaching position, I wanted something that was my own. So I got all fancy and designed a football field in which the class would move up or down the field based on classroom behaviors. I was so proud of my field and the planning that went into it, but the system itself wasn't the best. I was not consistent enough with it. 

After trying a few different ideas, I went back to the Letter System this past year. It's just so simple and it works. In the corner of the board, I spell out the word with dash marks for each missing letter. So if the class votes on "A MOVIE" it starts out looking like this on my board " _   _ _ _ _ _ " . Each time they earn for above expectation behavior or doing kind things, I add the letter above the dash. If the class is having a particularly rough day with behaviors or too noisy, etc. , all I have to do is walk towards the board and erase a letter, and students stop in their tracks. It gives them the chance to reassess themselves and still earn the letter back throughout the day. This past year I had a more difficult class and it took them awhile to spell out their words, but it made them try harder and before I knew it, they were encouraging each other to behave so that they could earn. They were so disappointed when a few students' behaviors would ruin it for them sometimes. It became a class effort and it made them work together as a team! I plan on using this again next year!

As I was reading the blog Downeast Teach , I liked her idea of the Teacher / Student Points System. I am thinking I will try implementing both of these systems together somehow. We shall see :)  

Another great way to keep kids motivated is the "UMS" strategy we used. It stands for "Unknown Mystery Student." My students named it "UMS" because it's like saying "Ummmm who is the mystery student?" :) I pick a random student by drawing one of their sticks. That is the student I watch throughout the lesson, the assembly, or the one I get a report back about after a special, whatever the day calls for. The kids LOVED this. If that particular student was on task and behaved, they either earn a letter for the class or an individual prize like bubbles or a pencil.  I didn't use this all the time, which also kept it more exciting when we did do it. The kids would be like, "can you please pick an UMS"?

For those students that need a little of their own attention, I tried the tally marks on a sticky note on their desks. This way I could just walk over and mark a tally, without stopping the lesson. When consistent, this works. I am looking for ways to minimize constantly pointing certain students out as they struggle to learn appropriate behaviors. These individual types of behavior systems will always change with each class, with each student, so I am always looking for new techniques and ideas!! 

Summer

Summer has begun! Because I refuse to go back to waitressing, I won't have a paid job this summer. However, I will most definitely be working - on all of the new adventures for next school year. I have already begun planning for our new reading program (the one that we have a lot of freedom to try and figure out on our own this coming year- which is awesome yet overwhelming), standards based grading, a new management system, improving my Social Studies Units, etc. It is such a refreshing feeling to be able to reflect on what worked and what didn't and just start all over! 
I think I have given myself more tasks than I can handle in 2 months, but if I can at least tackle half of my to-do list, I will be happy. Of course, I am not forgetting to update my Summer Bucketlist! When I write down all of the adventures I would like to do this summer that are not school related, it becomes a constant reminder of what I need to do for myself, family, friends, etc.! 
As I start to figure out how to make my Blog neat and orderly, I will post more images and ideas, but for now, my written thoughts are all I got :) Happy Summer!      

Closing the Year

Well, so far this blog has proven to be unsuccessful :) School is out in 10 days and this is my second post! But my adventure is just beginning. It is great to reflect on what worked and what didn't through the year and then have the opportunity to start fresh with new ideas. I already have so many ideas for next school year.

Next year our district is pretty much changing everything. We are going from marking periods to trimesters, from percentage scores/letter grades to 1- 4 Standards Based Grading, a whole new Reading Program that we are using next year to "figure out" and of course PARCC testing. If I thought this year was a year of learning, I am sure in for it. However, we all know as teachers, every new year is a year of learning. 

This weekend I am working on the Progress Report Revision Project to present to my committee on Monday - an example of an assignment with a Standards Based Grading rubric. I have no idea where to start! This should be fun...at least I can work outside on this beautiful day! 

Sunday evening and the example is  finished....but I have no idea how to embed the example in my blog. Still figuring all of this out :)