I am still alive and teaching...with STICKERS!

Well I know it has been a while and I am not sure I have any really good excuse for why I have not blogged for a long time other than pure laziness and grad class overload. So now that I have tried to explain myself let me tell you about my latest success: STICKERS! Now we all remember the days of kindergarten and how hard we all worked for those super cool and awesome stickers our teachers would give out, well I'm bringing it back to my high school classes. I bought these sparkly smile face stickers on sale at Staples for like $1.50 a package so I may have enough to last me my entire career but oh well. 

I use these as nothing more than rewards when my students raise their hands and answer questions or have a super answer on a JENGA post-it (see my prior blog post for how to use JENGA in your room). The students have become obsessed with these cute little stickers so much to the point that they requested a chart to track who had the most stickers in each class. It has become a challenge and a game to them to try their hardest on all the questions so they can out do their friends and get more stickers. 

This is one of the charts I have up and you can see many of them are in a tight race and others are a little less excited (Rikki, Noah and Dyllan have their own chart in a notebook that they keep them all together). I must say for the most part my students are working hard to answer better on all their conclusion questions and beg to play JENGA every day just so they can get some stickers. I had no idea when I started this that they would love it so much and I hope your kids love it as much as mine do! 

Why I do what I do

Yesterday I was blessed beyond belief to receive this incredibly kind text message from a former student of mine who has always been amazing about showing her gratitude. When I have a bad day or week and question why I am in this profession it's messages like this that make it very clear that it is worth every minute of stress, every tear, every battle and and every struggle. A veteran teacher who I admire, once told me to leave the bad days at the door when I go home and to hold the good ones close to my heart. Those words could not be more true for all teachers and I challenge all of you to hold onto the those moments and let them fuel your drive to be better every day because you will never know which lesson will be the one to make a difference. 

BREAKING NEWS!!! The tides may be changing!!

OK so today was possibly a mild break through to the naked eye but to me today was HUGE! On Monday in anticipation of no school on Tuesday I assigned homework for my animal science class which was simple, silly and easy. They were to draw out with small little pictures the directions to the lab we would carry out when we returned to school. So they came into class and began getting their packets out and waited for me and my magical stamp and then I came upon this awesomeness!!! Yes, I know I made it super large but you have to see this for its true beauty!! This girl used her time away from class to really get into these drawings and I LOVED it! I would be lying if I said this wasn't the highlight of my very very long day. We all have moments of doubt when it comes to our level of sanity and this profession and this my friends is a perfect example of that finally I am making progress with changing the tides of laziness with my students. So please help me find even more ways to help my student prepare for labs while enjoying learning at the same time. How do you prep students for labs? 

Exit Slip JENGA!

So on the SUPER cold day I got a genius idea to create something based upon an idea I saw on Pinterest. The idea I saw was for conversation JENGA with speech topics on each block. Students pull one out and then speak on it for a given amount of time. While I will be using this idea on the other side of my blocks for now I have come up with the idea I call Exit Slip JENGA (my husbands vote was for A+ JENGA and that was a no go) but you can call it whatever you want and like. So here is how this went down! 

I bought this set at the Dollar General store for $4 

Here is my finished product.

So with Sharpie in hand I sat down to come up with my questions. In total I have 10 questions all but one set are used 4 times. I plan to put on the other side in a different color the speech topic ideas and I will post that list as soon as I come up with them too! How will I use this is class? Well I already use Post-its like I endorse the darn company so I made my questions simple enough to be answered on a single Post-it. I plan to use them as exit slips out the door or to review if there is time remaining at the end of a class period. Another thought I have is to use the other side for pre-assessment questions (this just came to me as I was writing this and I actually like it way better than the speech topics!). 

Here is my list of questions: 

- What do you remember most?

- Summarize today's lesson

- How will this help you in another class

- Doodle/Draw today's key point

- How is this used in real life?

- What will we cover tomorrow?

- Create 1 quiz question and answer it

- Define 1 important term

- What is 1 question you still have?

- List 3 important points from today

So please give me your ideas on how you could use this in your classroom and what questions you will put onto your set?

The problem with so many questions

I know the old saying of there is never a dumb question but I think we are all willing to admit sometimes there are some questions that are not so... well intelligent. I struggle with this in my classes because I enjoy sharing personal experiences about the topic of discussion which leads to student sharing which I love don't get me wrong but its not those raised hands that are my problem. I nearly want to scream every time a student asks me to repeat instructions or something I just finished saying due to their lack of concentration and desire to pay attention. So while at the DuPont National Agriscience Teacher Ambassador Academy we were all introduced to the GENIUS idea of question cards. 

 

These are my question cards

 Now these simple little cards are nothing more than a little clip art man printed, glued to a note card and laminated but how ever you chose to make them they are magical!! I have one class in particular that drives me nuts with silly questions about things that can be found by simple reading their directions or listening. So depending upon the difficulty of the lesson I hand out 1-3 question cards. After we go over the activity together and answer any obvious questions I say "question cards now" and the students know that from that point forward if they want to ask a question of me it will cost them one question card. Like a ticket at the movie I simply pick up the card as I answer the question. Some students never use any question cards and some lose them all in 5 minutes. Now you may be thinking don't you want them to question things, don't you want them to be clear about what they are doing, how can you not answer their questions,? Yes, yes, and easy I force them to THINK! I give them the chance to be sure they want to use their card before I answer and I always allow them to discuss with their neighbors to find the correct answer. More times than not the students at a table will work together to determine if they want to use the card or not and if they do use it everyone within ear shot will be listening and listening closely! I love love love these things because as you can imagine students not only work together better but they listen very closely when I speak because it may save them from using one of their own cards. I highly suggest these as an addition to your classroom management toolbox for sure! What ideas or tricks do you have for weeding out the unnecessary questions and encouraging independent work?  

What a nerdy life I live...

So as I sit here on the oh so exciting Monday night I have actually made some pretty interesting things! I spent my Christmas money today at Staples getting random supplies the best and my absolute favorite.... SCENTED MARKERS!!

Now that I have admitted to being the biggest nerd ever on to the other nerdy things I did tonight, poster making. While at the store I purchased a flip chart (which happened to be the ONLY thing I went into Staples for but obviously that didn't go as planned). I have been seeing several ideas online for classroom posters that I have wanted for some time and so I present to you my super awesome and amazing new classroom posters.  

Ok get ready to stretch your neck out while checking out these first two (sorry some day I may become super computer savy and figure out how to turn these darn things once there are on the page)

This lovely poster I hope will help me to get my students back on track with their interactive notebooks. After staring at this on a picking it apart with my OCD brain I made a digital one that I have added to my TpT sight and you can find the link to that here What goes where?. 

This one I saw on another bloggers page and added a few things to each definition to better suit what I use with my students to remember these. 

This classroom management strategy is one I found on Pinterest and is very similar to one I am already using but I did not have a super cool poster so as you can guess I had to have a poster duh! 

This poster came to be through the ideas presented on several different posters on Pinterest. Most came from younger grade levels so this modification I hope will help my high school students understand how they can use the left side of their notebooks to showcase their notes in a visual way.

So now that it's nearly midnight I must put away these wonderful markers, wash my stained hands and go to bed. How do you see these being useful in your classroom? What could I have added/changed to make them even more awesome? Have an amazing New Year and thanks for reading!  

Motivating High School Students...oh the struggle

OK so this post may be more a rant/vent session than anything but my frustration level has been reaching an all time high lately due mostly impart to students feeling this sense of "I don't care" or "what do I have to do to pass" attitude! Now don't get me wrong those that are motivated and at least not negative about coming to school these days I am eternally grateful for but the majority are about to have me pulling my hair out (notice I said about).

Now as I spend my downtime searching Pinterest (as I hope most other females do because it's AWESOME) I find myself wishing I taught younger students just so I could utilize all the cute and fun stuff they often do! I have one class of 8th grade students and the motivation difference one year can make would astound you but little kids get excited about everything! They want to please you and please their parents still (I am sure some of you elementary teachers are ready to throw the book at me lol) and I am longing for something to help bring this into my high school students. So behold I give me my latest attempt....

Homeworkopoly!!! 

 Now I have put a considerable time into this and when I say considerable I mean like more than I have ever worked on a bulletin board before in my life and more than anyone ever should! Thus my desire to post this onto the Teachers Pay Teachers website. Now this bulletin board is one I plan to leave up for quite a while and use as a reward system for my classes. Each week the plan is that we will set a goal for the class to achieve and when they meet or exceed this goal they earn a chance to roll the dice and move their piece around the board. Where ever their piece should land will be the reward or incentive for that week/section. I used several suggestions from my own students and I assure you they are PUMPED about starting this in January. You can purchase this item by clicking the Homeworkopoly link above which will take you to my TpT sight where you can purchase your own ready to laminate and display bulletin board (as if you don't already have enough to do this Christmas Break)! I will let everyone know in January how it's going. What do you use to help motivate your high school students?  Until then enjoy your time off  and Merry Christmas!