Jenga... it's genius!

This guy uses the game of jenga to help kids practice sight words.

http://www.youtube.com/user/teachertipster#p/u/1/chGQdM2Q_oE

I plan on modifying this for vocabulary practice for units that are heavy on new words in Earth Science.

For my US History Class, perhaps I can use it for important people.

Anyway, this looked like a great way to have fun and learn at the same time (where the "fun" part isn't necessarily time consuming as it really only takes 3-5 seconds each time to pull out a new word/term/person and then they are focused on content material).

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Really???

"Hey Miss, just thought you should know, you the only one that could ever get me to come to 1st period."

Really? Do you ever have these moments... when you wonder what on earth you did to make a difference in a kid's life? I think, of anything, my students know that I genuinely care about them! That I love coming to work to do my best to teach them, to help them reflect on their experiences, and help them prepare for their future. Bertrand Russell said, "No man can be a good teacher unless he has feelings of warm affection toward his pupils and a genuine desire to impart to them what he believes to be of value." I think that this is true. Teens can sense whether or not we are being genuine, whether or not we are happy to be there, whether or not we enjoy their presence. Every day I wake up with a smile on my face... or if not physically on my face, in my heart. I truly love my students and believe it a privilege to have the ability to teach. Perhaps that is what my student saw when he continued to come back to first period everyday... (or maybe there was just a cute girl in the class he like... I guess one will never know!) ;-)

Keeping a Positive Attitude

Sometimes, we are surprised by how things turn out. Yesterday, the first day back in my school building, I was surprised. I was given a different schedule than I anticipated, and learned of some challenges I would soon be facing. At first, I was thinking like: I only get to teach 2 Earth Science classes and now I have 3 US History classes, a class I have not taught. I have 4 different co-teachers, in 4 different classrooms on 4 different floors, and one self-contained class. So even though I only have 2 different subjects, I will basically have 5 separate preps. Whine, whine, whine, complain, complain, complain...

Now that I have had some time to actually think about my upcoming school year, rather than just react, I have started to think positively about the situation. Here is a list of all the great things I am looking forward to: (and I fully expect to come up with more to add to this list in the next weeks!)

• Because I'm teaching Juniors this year too, I get to have some of the same students I had last year again!
• I get to teach with 2 people I have never taught with before. I get to learn all their tricks and observe more experienced teachers.
• One of my coteachers is a dean... jackpot.
• I get to teach with my favorite co-teacher of all time once everyday!
• I will learn how to teach another subject, one of my favorites! (US History)
• I will get exercise.
• I get to teach. I get to interact with 5 classes of kids everyday.
• I get to fine tune my craft.

Anyway, trying to stay positive. Everything can be positive. Tomorrow I get to meet my students and see some of my former students. I am VERY excited!!!

Current Events

Yesterday, as I got the news about an Earthquake sending tremors all the way to NYC (and further), I couldn't help but think how relevant this is to my teaching. As an Earth Science teacher, earthquakes are right up my alley (though I hope never to experience one). I am excited to teach the earthquake unit this year and hear stories from my students about their experiences with the tremors. This also made me realize how useful current events, or memorable events, are in a classroom. My first year teaching, I do not think I ever watched the evening news and did not read the newspaper that regularly. I tried to make up for that some by listening to news radio on my way to and from work. However, I think it is important, as a teacher, to know what is going on, both locally and in the world. Some of my colleagues use their smart phones to have quick access to the news. I know others that read the New York Times, cover to cover, everyday. There are many different ways to get access to the news. One of my favorites, because it is also accessible to our students, is This Week in Rap, a short video clip put out on fridays by Flocabulary that summarizes a week of current events.

Here are a few other resources to use when looking for current events:

• New York Times
• CNN
• Infoplease
• Teaching Current Events
• Current Events Graphic Organizer

Coming Back from Vacation

I just finished a short trip to Iowa to visit my grandparents, aunts, and cousins. It was an incredible time! On the trip back, I texted some of my closest friends, telling them about the highs and lows of my short "vacation." This got me thinking about how people like to tell their stories. I wondered how I could use this in a classroom as a community building exercise as school is about to begin. Here are just a few ideas for icebreaker activities to address this:

• Surprise Highs: Ask students to share their favorite part of the summer. This can be done in multiple ways in groups or individually. Grouping students, like in a think, pair, share type of format, would help students get used to this classroom practice and working with classmates using a very simple prompt.
• Dream Vacation: Have students draw a picture of their dream vacation spot on blank side of an index card and write why this is their dream vacation on the lined side of the index card. Again, a think, pair, share type activity could be used. This would also provide some good insight into strengths of your students. For example, which students are artistically talented and which students have an eloquent way with words.
• Interview: Pair students up and give them a "vacation" related theme. Have students share their partner's story about their vacation with either the rest of the class or another group of 2.

Here are some other resources to consult that might have some ideas about how to break the ice on the first day back from a vacation. These sites also help us think of other important issues surrounding the start of a school year:

• The Critical First Week of School: This site gives a few general ideas about how to establish a positive classroom atmosphere and classroom guidelines with a class. Also discussed is creating goals and a few icebreakers to use.
• Back-to-School Planning Guide: This site offers a ton of information regarding different units, icebreakers, activities, bulletin board/decoration tips, etc.
• 101 Things You Can Do the First 3 Weeks of Class: This site offers a list of good things to think about when approaching a new school year. Interestingly, it separates purposes for ideas in categories such as, helping students transition, challenging your students, providing support, building community, and more.
• Activities for the First Days of School: Here is a list of more things to think about and further resources to consult to help begin a successful school year.

Hopefully we will all be able to start a new school year off positively. We have heard how important the first few weeks of school are, which is why all of these things need to be thought through and prepared for in order to start a successful and positive school year!

Theatre Games in a Classroom

I remember being in youth group and doing silly games that encouraged everybody's participation. They were somewhat like improv games and took the pressure off to be "right" about something. The purpose was to try. I had a lot of fun doing these types of activities and now, as a teacher, wonder about the value of adapting these games to a classroom atmosphere. Here are some ideas that I have found that could be easily adaptable.

From Creative Drama and Resource Site Theatre Education:

• Categories: Students create a clapping beat. A category (I am thinking of kinds of minerals, I am thinking of United States Presidents, I am thinking of foreign countries, I am thinking of geometric shapes, I am thinking of American Poets, I am thinking of Shakespearean characters, etc.) is stated. Students have to name something that fits in that category, moving around a circle, taking no more than one beat to think of something that fits in. The objective is to keep the beat going as long as possible. In a class of 34, I could easily do this in two or three groups, and bring a competitive edge to the game. Some people would argue that competition isn't good in a classroom atmosphere, but I do think it is valuable sometimes as long as nobody is sore winners or sore losers.
• Improvisation Starters: Teachers can develop scenarios to use in order to get students to reflect or act out different situations. These can be used to teach different social responsibilities (see some of the starters listed on the website linked above), or they can be used to teach content. Here are some improvisation starters I thought of: Rosa Parks, a black woman during the civil rights era, goes to sit on a bus. She sits in the front and is asked to move to the back of the bus, solely because of the color of her skin. , A hurricane hunter is flying into the eye of the storm. , Bob is able to dig a hole to the center of the Earth, on the way down, he journals about what he sees. , etc.
• Name Game #1, Name Game #2: See the sight linked above to find a description of how to do these games. Great for first day of class to encourage people to learn classmates' names.
• Object Permanence: One great way to modify this game would be to use pictures/paintings as the objects rather than actual objects. Students could view a photograph/painting and be instructed to pay attention to details. Picture would be taken away and students, individually or in groups, would have to list every object/detail they can remember from the photo. (Another modification would be to loosely re-create the photo/diagram/picture by drawing it.) Team with most correct details wins. This would be especially useful if the details in the photograph were important to the content being taught. For example, the photograph could be about the anatomy of a hurricane and students could draw and label the different parts of a hurricane.

These are just a few of the many options available. Some more resources to use for ideas can be found below:

• Story Robot
• Contemporary Drama Service
• Kid Activities
• Classroom Lesson Plans
• Supercharge Your Classroom with Improvisation
• Using Drama Skills in the Classroom

Enjoy! I'm already thinking of ways to incorporate these activities into my classroom! Please comment if you have used improv effectively in a classroom and how. Share ideas!

Using Playing Cards

Today I was helping my mother get ready for a garage sale and saw that she was going to sell about a bajillion decks of playing cards. I thought, hmmm, these would be very inexpensive materials to use for games or responses in a classroom. Here are a few ideas (underdeveloped as I was just brainstorming):

• Hand each student or student-pair playing cards labeled 1-4. When asking students questions (multiple-choice), have students raise the corresponding playing card.
• Pick out cards that match. This is how students could be randomly paired (Red 2's, find each other, or for groups of 4, all 2's find each other).
• Use a modified version of the card game "war." Have students paired and both student flip up a card. The higher value card wins, but students quiz each other and can only take their winnings if question is answered correctly. If question is answered incorrectly, both cards can go in the kitty and the first person to answer a question correctly (on following turns) gets the kitty. (This might take preparation to have two question sheets prepared, with answers, to play. This could also take place in a group setting where group A and group B devise a sheet with questions and answers and the pairs to play war consist of one student from group A and one from group B)
• Each student can take a playing card as they enter, teacher can randomize responses by asking the student with the four of diamonds or the jack of spades (etc.) to respond or reflect on class material.

I'm sure there are many more options to think about in terms of the use of playing cards. Please add your comments if you have had success with playing cards in the classroom or if you have any additional ideas that might be exciting to try!

Visualizing Important Themes

One more resource I would like to share when talking about vocabulary is the following website:

http://www.wordle.net/

I have used this before to find the words in a text that show up quite frequently. This was a tool I used to help me pick which words should be included in instruction and on our word wall. Not only is this a good site for teachers to help make important decisions, it is also a fun activity to utilize with our students. Creating something using technology that is surrounded around words allows them to focus on their writing. It could be an interesting inquiry regarding how much students use the vocabulary words that are taught in class in their academic writing. To give you an example of the wordle website and how it can be used for vocabulary, I created a wordle cloud of this paragraph. Notice how the words I used most often are HUGE and those used only once or twice are quite small.

You are able to change the font and color schemes and do a bunch of fun stuff with the arrangement of the words on your page.

Anyway, as promised, today we are moving on to another topic. When reflecting on my previous 2 years of teaching, I have found that some of my most successful lessons have been when I used or created a game-like way to learn content. For example, when teaching about ancient Mesoamerica (Olmecs, Aztecs, Mayans, Incas), my students were not getting very excited about the content like I thought they might. So, when looking at my student body, I realized I had quite a few sports players in my class. Since they were generally very active in my class, I decided to take a risk. Fashioning a ring out of paper, I taped it sideways on the wall like the first team sport. I showed a short clip from The Road to El Dorado of the game and let my students determine what the objectives were and observe what the rules might be. Then I made a ball out of paper and explained we were going to play this sport with a few twists. We split the class into 2 teams. Every time they made the ball through the ring, they got a point. If they missed, they had to answer a question correctly, or support their answer if it was a "what do you think" question, in order to receive the point. Some of my better questions sparked conversations, thoughts, and debates that placed the game on hold. My students were finally showing excitement, and all I had to do was spend like 12 cents on paper and tape supplies.

There are other ways to re-create this type of game. A teacher could put two bins on the side and do the same type of point arrangement. The way points are awarded could be changed to your liking. This type of game can be easily used for a review activity. In fact, a very similar activity was related to vocabulary instruction in my Vocabulary Games post.

Throughout the next week, I'll be sharing some of the game-type activities that I have utilized in class. To bring your attention to another game we have played, refer to my Human Bingo post.

One thing I am researching/reading about right now is the use of video games in the classroom. This I haven't done yet, so I am looking at different sites and viewpoints of it. Today I found the following website, and thought I would share it (Games Work in Education).

Wrapping Up Vocabulary

Wrapping up our week on vocabulary. Over the next week I'll be focusing on a different general topic. I haven't chosen it yet, so if you have suggestions, leave a comment.

Today I just wanted to make a few statements that should be considered when talking about vocabulary:

• Research has shown that words should be used at least 10 times before they are really learned.
• Words that are used in a variety of settings will help students gain the ability to use the words we are teaching.
• Vocabulary words should be looked at both in how to decode them, their word parts, and a relevant meaning.
• Examples and Non-examples are important when helping students classify and put new words into existing categories.

There are plenty more things to think about when addressing vocabulary instruction. For more strategies and research, I suggest consulting the resources I have cited in this week's blogs.