Week 5- Sept. 19-23

Hoo boy what a week. Craziness. The kids lost their dang minds this week. We ended up not having recess because of the behavior. They were better today (Monday, I'm late writing this) so hopefully that will work.

Monday-We talked conductors vs. insulators. The kids were kind of surprised by what materials qualified as each, and why.

Tuesday- Physical Properties Lab! There is ALWAYS a data table like this on the stinking staar test, and they always do poorly on those questions. So this year I stepped up my game and we did the lab itself.

Wednesday- I had to go to that STUPID meeting, and on the Solubility day of all days. You can take Ms. Kat out of the classroom, but you can't prevent her from teaching via video. I legit recorded myself saying the things I would have normally said in class and plugged the videos into the slideshow. The sub simply had to flip through the notes, the kids filled in the blanks and BOOM there was Ms. Lynch on the screen. The did very well on their homework for that night, so WIN FOR ME.

Thursday- Ah, mixtures. Last year the kids had the WORST time with remembering how to separate mixtures, and the difference between mixtures and solutions. I hit it hard this year.

Friday-To add to the crazy, we had our district-wide homecoming pep rally today. We were on short schedule, and I couldn't NOT teach solutions today. We managed it by going at LIGHT SPEED.

I can't wait for this next week. It's going to be crazy. I'm doing the review game and test online this year (or at least trying to). Plus, we have a new requirement: a benchmark test every 6-weeks. 10-12 questions generated via our curriculum dept. Yippie for us.

Hope your Autumn is getting off on the right foot,

~Ms. Kat

Week 4- September 12-16

Have you ever wanted to flick somebody so hard in the forehead that they fell into the black hole at the center of our galaxy?

No? Well good. This Full Moon in Pisces has me reeling.

And for the record, it's not a student causing me issues, it's curriculum shenanigans.
But I digress.

Another good week!

Monday- We started our new Matter unit. Today's physical properties were Mass, Weight, and Volume.

Tuesday- The States of Matter

Wednesday - Density. This is always a hard one to explain. They think things sink because of weight. The density column blew their minds.

Thursday- We took our vocab quiz and then hurried through Boiling and Freezing points of water. I made a huge deal this year about melting/freezing being the same temperature. I think it paid off.

Friday- Magnetism.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some ridiculous, useless professional development to weasel my way out of.

~Ms. Kat

Week 3 Sept. 5-9

We're still going strong! We had a good week, if you ignore the Thursday, which was our first pep-rally. The kids were beyond excited.

Monday- Holiday

Tuesday- I had the kids to their first "look it up in your journal" review. They did pretty good one it. Hopefully, this was a good introduction into using their journal as a resource.

Wednesday- The kids took their Scientific Method and Lab Tools Quiz. Grades started out not so great, but got better as the day went on. Is this because my teaching gets better as the day goes on, or because my honors students are mixed into the last two class periods? The world may never know!

Thursday- I had intended for us to do a comic strip for the Scientific Method unit, but since we took so long on the quiz yesterday, one day was not enough to complete it. Instead, we went over the quiz and watched the Bill Nye on the States of Matter (since properties of matter is our next unit)

Friday- We started our first vocabulary! I had a slideshow that we went through one slide at a time, and the kids filled in the blanks in their notes. Then, we went back and drew pictures for each word. The kids seemed to enjoy it, and they had plenty of great questions, especially about solubility.

(I'll upload a picture next week, I forgot to take one before I fled the school for the weekend!)


I can't believe we're 3 weeks into the year already. Progress reports come out Monday! Time is flying by so quickly, and I sure hope it continues to do so! These are some great kids, and I still think this year is going to be great.

~Ms. Kat

Doing things differently

Ok, so here's a running list of the things I'm trying new this year. I'll update it here if I add anything.

Classroom Management:

1. Classcraft
This year I'm trying Classcraft. It's like classdojo, but more like dungeons and dragons/rpg style.

http://classcraft.com/

You can give Experience Points to kids for doing good things. I've been giving out points for everyone in a class having their homework done, everyone being ready to start class 3 minutes after the bell rings, pushing in chairs in the cafeteria, answering questions, etc.

You can take away HP for doing bad things. I haven't used this yet, and I'm not sure I'm going to.

The kids earn XP to level up. As they level, they can gain new reward options (sitting with a friend, picking a group member, snack pass).

2. Stop signs

I found these nifty stop signs online. I edited them to suit my purposes. On one side, they say "STOP" and the other has a checklist of things they could be doing to break the rules (blurting out, out of seat, disrupting others, disrespect). So when someone does something, I check what they did wrong, set it on their desk, and they usually straighten out really quickly.

Our grade-wide behavior system this year has 4 tiers
Warning (I use stop signs for this)
Pull  A slip (behavior correction slips, they have to sign their name)
Copy an Essay (from my ever-expanding essay binder, they have to get it signed)
Office Referral

3. Be Ready

My kids have 5 things they must do to "Be Ready" for class.

1. Grab papers (notes, worksheets, etc)
2. Get Journal
3. Copy Agenda
4. Do warmup
5. Glue Pages in journal

I didn't do a warmup last year, we never had time. This year I'm making it a priority. I make the warmup question about whatever the topic was they day prior. They also have an exit question for each day about what they learned that day. I print the warmup/exit question front/back and now staple it to their homework.

4. Homework

I'm asking them to do HAPPIER on every question on their homework. We are grading daily instead of only Wednesdays and Fridays

5. Recess

We had to take recess away from last year's group, but we're trying it with this years group in the hopes it sticks. We only do recess on Fridays as a reward for having a good week.

Throughout the week, anyone who gets a slip or acts up too much gets a C in their agenda book gets 5 minutes off of recess. If someone doesn't do their homework, it's up to the teacher how much time they owe. In my class, they owe 5 minutes for each day that was not done (since we have a little each day). If you're missing an assignment from anyone, you don't go out at all, even once the assignment is made up.

It worked well this week. Some of the kids were really bothered that they had to stay in. Hoping this will help encourage them to take care of business!

6. No zeroes
Our new P and VP started this at the high school a while back. It works differently in 8th grade since they don't have study skills, but in 5th, we submit all missing assignments on Thursday by noon. They go to google spreadsheet and our VP is supposed to call their parents (and so are we, really). The students HAVE to do the work, though we don't HAVE to grade it if it's more than 3 days late. Anyone who gets submitted doesn't go to recess on Friday.

7. Restroom policy

At the beginning of each 6-weeks, students get a restroom pass sheet stapled into their agenda. They have a box for each week of the 6-weeks. (7 for a 7-weeker, 5 for a 5 weeker). They can use them whenever. BUT, if they don't use them, they get rewarded at the end of the 6-weeks. They can trade their unused boxes for prizes on the last day of the 6-weeks, so the less they use, the more rewards they get.

Students must use a pass except during the following times:
Before school
During Lunch
During Study Skills
During Rotation

So far it's working well.

8. Last day of the 6-weeks

The last day of our 6-weeks periods are Early  Release days. The science department decided to do our required benchmark tests on these days. The 5th grade has agreed to have ALL students test in 1st period that day, and then we begin the fun festivities. I'm not sure what exactly we're doing yet, but it will probably involve games, movies, and snacks.

~Ms. Kat

Week 20 Aug 29-Sept 2

I am liking these kiddos more and more. They're such a refreshing change from the chaos and disrespect that marked last year's group.

Monday- We played Safety SCOOT! The kids seemed to enjoy it better than a sit-down review. This year's group was so QUIET! I barely had to shush anyone!

None of the classes got to answer all 21 questions, and I had anticipated this, so I had copies of the review (with all questions and answers) ready to hand out. They were asked to check their answers and study the study guide as homework.

Tuesday- We took our Safety Quiz. They did great!

After, I introduced HAPPIER. This year, I'm starting them off with it and using it on ALL homework throughout the year. I can see the difference already. I just finished grading this week's homework (15 Q's out of our Textbook's STAAR practice guide) and most of them missed 3 or less! I don't even have words how much of an improvement that is over last year! I'm very excited about this!

Wednesday- We began the Scientific Method. Once again, no one had ever heard of it!

We did some hilighting/boxing in/starring in the notes, then I pulled up a Glencoe Virtual Lab and we did a practice experiment to go through all the steps.

Thursday- The annual "I planned too much and we barely got to do anything" day. I had intended to teach them to use triple beam balances, spring scales, thermometers (which I could not find!) and rulers. They ended up measuring 2 things on the TBB and one on the Spring Scale. Oh well.

Friday- We had our FIRST LAB! The kids were pumped. It was a bit rushed, sadly. The kids are still moving slowly through their bellwork, so it took us a while to get going. However, once they got into the lab, they did great! This was my first time to use the job role necklaces I made last year, and they helped SO MUCH. I'll discuss these in my "What i'm doing different" post (coming soon!)

The lab was a simple one...which side of a penny will hold the most water? But I told them it wasn't about the content, it was to practice the scientific method steps. They still had a blast.

This year is really shaping up to be great! Can't wait for things to really get started with our first unit in week 4!

~Ms. Kat