In a Million Words or Less.....

This is a homework activity that I give my seventh-grade parents at the open house every year. It really helps me to connect with my kids right away. Parents seem to like it and often share valuable information. I always send a thank you note back to the parents that participate whether it be by snail mail or email! In it, I include their grade for completing the assignment, which is always an A! (I'm blonde, not stupid) I have updated and loaded this activity to my TPT store.  Just Download it and insert it in your information. This activity really gets my year off to a great start. I hope it does yours too.

You can download your copy here: In a Million Words or Less.....

Monthly Journaling Pages

My Freshmen are using monthly journaling pages, along with other activities I have received several responses about these so I am re-posting. 

 I simply give my kids the page and check for completeness at the end of the month. I used to give them a prompt every day and make them write it, date it, and write a half-page response. With these, I set no requirements, which threw them at first, but I simply explained that it was their journal and to do what they thought needed to be done. I could tell they thought I had lost my mind, and I wasn't sure how this would turn out. When I went to grade them I couldn't believe how much work my kids had put into their journal pages! Full pages of poetry, illustrations, recipes, stories, etc... Giving up control and letting them take over has been one of the best things I have ever done.

These make good activities for interactive notebooks. Next year I plan on having a "grab a snack and write Fridays." This will allow them to share some of the recipes they have found or shared. This should be fairly quick to do and can lead to other writing activities, i.e. writing critiques, responses, memories, etc...

                   

                    

         Here are the links to the other pages:

All Journal Pages Here

That's My Pencil!

Last year I went through over 350 pencils! That's more than three pencils for every student in every class! It has gotten out of hand and I'm not going to take it anymore. So I say........

The fact is I am a softy when it comes to students asking for paper, pencils, and other supplies.  I am also often asked for supplies from kids working on projects in other classes and will try to help them. However, it has become so bad that I feel a little abused.

If you are a teacher and are planning on doing a project that requires colored pencils, construction paper, glue etc..... don't rely on other teachers to supply your classes, and if you do get the goods make sure to return them.

Sorry about the rant, but I must admit I feel much better. I did see a pin on Pinterest  of a cute way to mark your pencils so I made some. I bought the Zebra pencils at Mardel's and put red tape flags on them. Will it work to keep my pencils in my classroom? Who knows but they are easy and cute!

Let me know if you have any ideas on how to keep your classroom supplies from walking out the door. Maybe one of those detectors like they use at Walmart. No, they go off way to often.

I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas and don't forget to follow me.

Human Strength and Courage

Getting prepped to do a wrap-up to my Diary of Anne Frank unit with a quick research project. We are going to be reporting about genocide that is or has happened in recent history. I have been scouring the web in an attempt to reinforce our theme of human strength and courage and found a few photos i wanted to share.

The two items below are from http://beenflaggedoncraigslist.blogspot.com/ . This is one of my favorite blogs. The writer is fabulous and I get a lot of really funny and interesting articles to share with my kids. I highly reccommend that you check him out! Great stuff!!!

Pain is a temporary state, but if left unrelieved, becomes suffering.

Pain and suffering, whether physical or emotional, demand to be acknowledged—to be felt. 

How we deal with suffering clearly reveals the content of our character, 

and the resolve of our heart.

Common Core Sample Assessment Items

This is a great site to gather sample test items for the Common Core. 

Sample online assessments: Literacy

Scroll down to page three to find the links listed by grade level.

Performance Assessment items: ELA by grade level

Math is also available on this site. 

Using Jog the Web in Your Classroom

This website allows you to make a list of sites to use in research, give quizzes, or view videos that you find appropriate. I am starting a cause, effect, and fact project on natural disasters with my 8th graders. Students are going to be assigned a particular natural disaster to research. they will then write a five-paragraph essay on their topic using MLA citations, and make a Prezi present their projects to the class.

This is quite a bit to try to cover before Christmas break, so I asked our fabulous librarian for some help. She introduced me to this site and has gone in and listed 5 different sites for each natural disaster on our list. My kids will link to it from my classroom page and start doing their research. This tool will be beneficial to keep them focused and cut down on having to closely monitor 28 kids while they freely surf the web, and free up time for me to help them with the actual assignment. There are also jogs already listed for you to use in your classroom. Just click on the link below to check it out.

http://www.jogtheweb.com/run/T0lWbsUijJRL/Using-JogTheWeb-in-the-Classroom
I am planning on posting the project when we get it completed so stay tuned.

Free Common Core Vocabulary Lessons for Grades 9-12

I was doing a little surfing yesterday and came across this site at Visual Thesaurus. These vocabulary lessons are for grades 9-12 and are aligned with the common core. I am creating a vocabulary unit for my freshmen and am definitely using some of these.  If you teach high school and are looking for something a little different and challenging for your kids check it out!

You can get to the visual Thesaurus common core lessons by clicking here.