https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/your-brain-on-books-education-literature#/
We want to change the world one book at a time!
The Trendy Teacher |
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I have a new passion project! A fellow teacher friend and I are trying to build funds to start a company that aims to get socially conscious kids books into the hands of early readers, donate books to schools in need, combats early childhood literacy inequities, and raises awareness about early childhood literacy. Basically, we want to do it all! But we need some help! We have started a fundraising campaign to try and get our project off the ground! If this sounds like an idea you can get behind, help us out by simply sharing the link!
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/your-brain-on-books-education-literature#/ We want to change the world one book at a time!
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I spent the last few weeks curating my classroom decor, but now its time for my favorite kind of back to school shopping, teacher outfits! Below are some of my favorite splurges, deals, and must have staple pieces for my teacher wardrobe this year. Click on each image for a link to where you can buy each item! Happy Shopping!
Here is a website I created for my juniors and seniors as a resource for finding info out about college. Feel free to share with your students to give them some info on making choices for college, taking those standardized tests, and applying to the right school!
panthersfutures.weebly.com I recently started teaching the novel "Speak" with my honors freshman classes. They love it! One of the things that I wanted them to focus on when they are text marking their books ( they annotate in all of their novels) are the motifs the author uses. Below is a visual I made to remind my students what they should be looking for as they read. The images are supposed to be a mirror, seeds, trees, and lips/mouths. Feel free to steal this idea to help your kiddies!
I wanted to do something to help those on the east coast affected by Sandy. I also decided, why not ask the 130 people I see everyday if they would like to help to. I stumbled upon this article and found an address collecting supplies for school and students in need. I decided to let my kids choose to bring in supplies or do their homework for points on Monday and Tuesday of this week. I do not believe in letting students "buy" a grade by bringing in supplies, which is why my kids could bring something in, or do thier work. There was no extra crdit given for simply bringing in supplies. Here is a link to the article I read with an address to send school supplies to. I hope we can all help to make a difference for those in need! http://wordontheshore.com/school-supplies-for-hurricane-sandy-victims-cms-1779 These days our students spend hours on the internet. They have been trained to connect best with visuals. Funny images and humourous pictures are getting the top hits from kids on websites like tumblr and facebook and other social sites. Why not use this need for funny graphics to reel our students into lessons? Below are some of my favorite images that I plan to use throughout the year as attention getters and hooks for different lessons. Steal away and lets work together to get kids engaged! I LOVE the show this image is from: Ned's declassified school survival guide. So funny, and students should recognize it! What an interesting way to give kids the old "choose your partner wisely" speech. Let the image speak for you. I used this saying to get my juniors ready for ACT grammar. Grammar is not always interesting, but if you use a little hummor, the kids can put up with it for a class period, and learns some comma rules right off the bat! Hamlet humor. Gotta love it. OBVIOUSLY CANNOT SHOW THIS. But it speaks the truth. Again, advice about picking group members. Teaching credible sources with the (in)credible Hulk! He just looks so cute in glasses :) This one is for the science teachers out there. What a fun way to review famous scienetists and the discoveries/theories they are known for! And finally, an abreviated way to introduce both sides of a discussion for Romeo and Juliet in a formate kids are used to: facebook. Is the play really about love? Do the ends justify the means? Were they really in love?
Comment and let me know what images worked in your classroom, or if you have any creative ways to use what our students are seeing online to engage them in the classroom! Recently a literacy specialist came to my school and met with all of the English Language Arts teachers. One of the main things I took away from our half day meeting ( should have been all day! But alas, sub costs...) was that student-talk should out weigh teacher-talk. When done efficantly and effectivly, having a student lead/run classroom is most beneficial to our students. Who's opinion and words do they value the most? Certainly not the grown woman yaping on and on and on at the front of the room! They listen to their peers. The hard part about having more student talk is that its hard for us control frea... I mean teachers, to let go and lets the kids take a lesson where they want it to. I really struggle with this. I want to know my kids are always on task, but I've quickly learned a quiet class does not always mean an engaged and learning class. So I decided to make this year more student driven. Granted, I have freshmen and they need a little more guidance than most, but they are taking to almost all the activities I throw at them. One really effective student driven activiiy I did is called a walk-a-bout I focused mine on the differnt atributes and aspects of characters in the novel we were studying, but you can adapt this for any topic! I also used this in my student teaching for brainstorming research topics, and I've seen other teachers in my school use it for test review. Here are the simple steps! Pick topics you want kids to generate information for. I picked 6 characters from To Kill A Mockingbird: Jem, Scout, Atticus, Calpurnia, Burris Ewell, and Ms. Caroline. I had 6 pieces of butcher paper. ( giant sticky notes work much better, waaaaa easier to set up, but also expensive) I hung them around the room. Divided students into groups. Gave them all a marker. Told them to write anything they knew about that character, and the page they found that information on. I also provided students with a list of things they could write about for each character, such as: occupation, personality traits, relationships, likes and dislikes, age, and place of origin. I gave students about 4 minutes at each paper, rotated them 6 times so everyone got to every paper, andI watched the ideas flow. After, I went around and we talked about each character, crossed off incorrect information, and added important information that was needed. ( this is where my control freak side got to finally come out!) In generall, students had a much better understanding of these characters, and knew exacly where to look when I asked them to write three pieces of textual evidence supporting information about each character. I'd say it was a success, mostly for the fact that no one wrote "boobs" or other ridiculous things on the posters. Below is a picture of one brainstorm sheet, and the collection of sheets from different periods to keep for reference later on! I currently teach freshmen, and getting these students to plan for tomorrow, let alone in four years in a fight all on its own. However, I wanted to get my students thinking about their futures, and possibilities they might have, or not have, depending on their action throughout high school.
I decided, instead of giving them the patented lecture the guidance office gives each year to get creative and give kids a visual. All I did in class was ask them to fill out a goal sheet about where they think they want to be in 4 years, and then I directed them to my college display. I said "look at this, explore it, ask me questions, or ignore it, but there is an abundance of information right in this room to help you plan for the future. Take it or leave it". And I have had a lot of students take! Its amazing what a simple display that I didn't give any lengthy explanation about has inspired! Kids have asked me about specific colleges, and when I ask if they want me to look up more information they have wanted it and have read it! I have helped my sophomore students think about tests they might want to take, have kids asking me to help them prepare for the ACT and generally have kids thinking about their futures. Granted, its not all my students, and maybe these kids were already planning for the future, but its great to see students taking action and considering different paths they might be able to take after high school. I've posted picture below of my display ( its currently still a work in progress!) The letters say "Panthers Can Go Far" and I have different headings for different kinds of schools. I simply asked my guidance office for any extra or old pamphlets from schools they didn't want and cut them up for my board. My sister is also currently a senior in high school, so I took a lot of the college mail that she had already looked at, or didn't need anymore. I looked up information about needs-blind admissions and full-need admissions here. Here is a list of schools that offer full tuition and full rides based on act scores. Scroll down to where it says "Bob Wallace" and he has created a comprehensive list by state for these types of schools. I'm just so excited to be able to give my kids this information, and for them to get it from a familiar face. Sometimes it can be intimidating to go into a guidance office and ask a staff member you don't really know about information. Hopefully, I can inspire my kids to start with me, and then work their way to the college experts in the office. I am currently feeling the strain of the end of first quarter, and I'm not the one getting a grade! The graph above was shown to me by my mentor last year, and I can tell you, it's pretty spot on. I am for sure feeling like I'm going down hill and fast in my classroom... and the kids feel the same way. I'm hoping that by starting a new unit and incorporating some creative and engaging lessons within the next few weeks I can not only rejuvenate myself, but my kiddies as well! I'll be posting what works here so make sure to check back and maybe steal some ideas that might get you and your class out of this seasonal slump!
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Author Nerdy 9th grade English teacher who loves books and teaching. |