It has been quite awhile since my last post because I have been busy, busy, busy! I spent a week and a half in Ukraine, and came back to the school year already in progress (we're on a blended calendar and have intercessions, basically it means we start early, end late, and take extra time "off" during the year). Thankfully one of our football coaches took good care of my kids while I was gone and got them off to a great start to the year. Catching up on all the paperwork and sorting out new students has taken quite awhile, I'm still not finished, but I don't mind--I love what I do! Last year we added an advisory class to our day and, due to lack of direction and planning, it turned into a glorified study hall period that basically consisted of watching movies and pretending to work on homework. This year we're determined to make it better and I was able to get my own students assigned to my class (crazy, I know--advising students I actually teach!) so we can be productive. I decided to use the time for vocabulary focus as well as actual homework help. Each day before we work on homework we discuss two vocabulary words: 1 academic and 1 math. The academic vocabulary materials were already finished and ready to use, but I had nothing for math. Knowing what I wanted helped. I wanted to practice a word a week, in context, with example problems. I also wanted something similar to my academic vocabulary program: pictures, student friendly definitions, authentic usage. I started working and came up with two different versions, both of which work very well. One is a bulletin board version (what we usually use) and the other a journal (used when I'm going to be out of the classroom for an extended period). Each day when we come in we discuss the 2 words for the day, use them in a sentence, work out the example problem, and do another word activity of some sort (such as spin our word wheel and find a word that fits the category). I post them on clipboards that remain up all week, so if a student is absent he/she can easily and quickly catch up. The whole process takes about 15 minutes and then the students have time to work on their homework, read a book, draw a picture, or play one of the many games that we have in the classroom. The previous weeks' words are posted on the wall for easy reference and the students refer back to them when needed (or when I tell them to). The academic vocabulary product covers words on the CCSS 5-8th grade lists. Someday I may expand it, but I keep getting distracted by other things. Thus far I've only finished the 3rd and 7th grade CCSS math vocabulary lists. I had 8th grade nearly finished when my hard drive died and I lost the work (lesson learned--always backup every day). Eventually I'd like to finish 8th and 9th grades and then go back to fill in the gaps, but I need to finish all this paperwork for the state first... |
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AuthorI've been teaching since 2000 and love what I do! Archives
May 2018
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