Alright, so here's some things I've been responsible for in my classroom. The top is students pictures of themselves along with some information about who they are. The middle is just an example of the technology in the classroom. That is a smartboard (first generation) and we use it to do grammar lessons.
This last picture I am pretty proud of. Today I wrote positive notes on sticky notes and the kids loved it. Some of them wore the notes around on their shirts and others put them in their planners for their parents to see. I will definitely keep the sticky notes up. I can't believe how excited it made them!
On to other news, I have officially kicked the caffiene. The day right after I wrote the post I quit cold turkey. Though, it wasn't too hard seeing as I don't really drink coffee anyhow. I read something online that said to turn the lights on all the way as soon as you get up, and don't press snooze.
Well, I still press snooze, but the light thing really does work!
I don't know how to teach social studies so it sticks. My kids do great during the lessons. But when it comes to the homework they totally bomb it. :( Part of it is they are still learning to read. Actually, I think that's a big part of it. I mean, what else is social studies apart from reading? You need to read questions and be able to write sentences. I try to make the lessons interactive, and for the most part I think they are.... Well, at least progress reports went home today and parents can get on their kids for having such low grades.
In addition to taking over social studies, I am now responsible for taking over writing! AHHH! I've never taught writing before. How do you teach a class how to write? Do you start with what a sentence is? Or do you start with just writing a response to a topic? Or do you start with a project and spend a long time refining it? I think I'll start with the project and do a writer's workshop on it. That should be pretty fun. I think we'll write myths and legends. I read the Legend of the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes for social studies and I think the kids would have fun writing their own explanations for the things around them. Plus, I can make it so first we learn about brainstorming and then we map out beginning, middles and ends...and you know, just work on different parts at different times. My hope is to have published myths be Halloween...but it may take longer than a month to get these boys to the press.
Well, that's about it. I really do like teaching. I appreciate that it is different every day.
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