And one more post for you guys since I fail at updating my blog.
It was homecoming week at school, and Thursday was favorite team day. Soooo, I made a t-shirt! Anytime the kids asked about it, I said, “My favorite team? Team Peeta!” They got a huge kick out of it.
Some of these are really funny.
I had every intention of posting updates on my interactive student notebooks, but I really fail this week. I didn’t even get around to taking pictures.
So, I’ll just pass this on to you for now.
(Source: mcdavis)
I had stress induced nigh terrors all night, and was depressed all day at work. I hated being their, and was at-the-end-of-my-rope frustrated with my kids. This is the first time I’ve really had to deal with my extreme anxiety and depression while at work - usually it creeps up in the evening, or…
My first year, I was too nice. So I was exactly in your position. I found myself repeating the same instructions over and over, getting more and more frustrated my the lack of respect and attention to my lessons, and students not meeting my expectations.
Year two, I took a step back and realized something: The reason my students were acting this way is because I was letting them. Not consciously. But with every procedure I let slide, with every rule I was too lax on, with every situation I didn’t address, my students learned what they could get away with doing.
Year three, and I’m a good blend of year 1 and year 2. I try to be nurturing and foster relationships, but with an iron fist. I’ve learned that being a stickler for rules and procedures makes me feel like things run more smoothly in my classroom, meaning I am more relaxed in my personality with my students.
I hope this makes sense. I am in no way blaming you, because we’ve all had a group of students that we, as the teacher, do everything exactly as we should and they still don’t perform as we want. But also, as the teacher, we should constantly be on the lookout for ways to improve the one thing we can control: ourselves.
Last post, I swear.
As I’ve said before, I have 25 IEPs/504s this year which really demands some serious differentiation. Foldables have turned out to be difficult and time consuming, so as I’ve mentioned in past posts, I typically print them off. Or I skip the foldable entirely, as shown in the photo above.
I further change things up a little bit by making the information that needs to be written on the foldable easier. I lose their attention quickly, and long rules and complicated examples means I lose them too. For example, here, we just put one easy example on the inside of the foldable. I also had them write the rule in student-friendly language. Which, after reflecting on it, is a good idea for all students, not just my SPED ones.
For pronouns, we did this a couple different ways. For my SPED students, I printed off the foldable and they filled in the information.
For my other classes, I had them make a trifold foldable and fill it out on their own.
I had them do their homework at the bottom so they would have five good examples of using pronouns correctly.
By the way, I am in love with colored notebook paper. Walgreens, Office Max, and Staples all carry it. I think it adds a fun touch to the notebook.
Possessive Nouns are up next! Same start up. Definition and examples on the big foldable, and the magazine cut outs on the inside.
Then we discussed the rules for making nouns possessive. I typed this foldable up for my SPED students, but otherwise the rest of my classes made it and filled it in themselves.
I made a couple mistakes on it, which they caught! The title should say possessive nouns, not plural nouns. I also should have said, “Does the noun end IN (not is) -S?” Made that mistake twice…
Then we went over a little flow chart that I made up last year that really helps my more visual learners.
And that wraps up possessive nouns! Pronouns up next.
After writing singular and plural nouns on our foldable, we recapped the definition of each, examples, and cut out the magazine photos. I wish I had taken a picture, but I had my students cut out an item, and then label it possessively. For example, if a student cut out a picture of a salad, they would label it “Megan’s salad.”
Next, we did a six tab foldable on six main rules of spelling plural nouns. Here’s an example of the inside of that.
Next, we did something that the kids really enjoyed but I’m sure I’m going to be horrible explaining. I gave them all a blank copy of the 6 tab foldable. They took out a sheet of notebook paper, and traced the 6 tab foldable. Next, they glued the two foldables to their composition book page. To make it a little easier, I had them glue the one I copied first, and the one they traced on top of that, ending up with this.
The top foldable was titled Singular Nouns, the middle foldable Plural Nouns. Finally, they traced the 6 tab one more time onto their composition book. I gave them six singular nouns, which is what you see above. They were given the task of making the singular nouns plural…
Then writing sentences using the plural nouns.
The students really enjoyed doing it like this, and it was more fun than completing it on a worksheet!
So, I’m going to recap a few days of the ISNs, because I haven’t been updating like I should. This is where we are right now. After covering common and proper nouns, we moved on to singular and plural nouns, singular and plural possessive nouns, and pronouns. I haven’t quite decided what to do with the last tab, because I’m starting verbs on Monday. I think I’m just going to use it as a wrap up tab, like, “Write down a sentence summing up what we have learned about nouns.” Or something like that.
Sunday:
- Ritualistic Sunday eating & planning at Panera
Write adjectives testWrite adjectives study guideWrite adjectives homework/practice problemsWrite notes for comparative and superlative adjectivesWrite practice for comparative and superlative adjectives- Make copes of all the…
I really wish we had a panera, because eating and planning at panera sounds like a perfect sunday. While I was still in college I would work on homework at Barnes and Noble with lunch and coffee. Best.Sundays.Ever.
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