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

New Year, New Ms. Kat

WOW! The summer went faster than I can even comprehend. And here we are, already one week into the new school year.

There are a lot of things I'm doing different this year. I'll make a post at some point once I get pictures to make the post complete.

We gained both a New Principal and a new VP this year. We lost our outstanding 8th grade Science teacher (whose last year scores were 91 freaking percent). Lots of logistical and operational changes.

As a part of this new direction, the admins dictated that we not just go over rules on the 1st day of school. There was no way for me to put it off, so I DID go over rules, but I did a few little fun things on  day 1 to balance it out.

Here is what we did on this first week of school:


Monday:
1. I started out showing the kids this site: http://www.boredpanda.com/dangerous-journey-to-school/

They were amazed at how hard kids around the world had to work just to get to school. So I'm hoping when they start complaining about HOW HARD life is, I can say "remember the first day of school?"

2. I went over rules. Yes, a slideshow. However, I incorporated memes! Kept em laughing.

3. I introduced ClassCraft. I wanted to do something different this year for reward/behavior tracking. If you've not heard of it, it's like classdojo, but dungeons and dragons style. So far it's working well.

Tuesday: We talked about my class procedures
1. Science journals
2. Warmups
3. Homework
4. Makeup Work
5. NOISE level and letters

Wednesday: We set up our science journals. Here's what we put in there:

The very front page is a dedicated Title page. They are allowed to go back and decorate it at any point when they have free time in class.

The back of the title page is page 1. We write our page numbers in the bottom outside corner. This page starts our table of contents. Last year I had them write their TOC. It was a huge waste of time and some couldn't read what they wrote. So this year, since I know what we're doing, I typed it for them.

 We left 2-4 blank for future TOCs

Then we discussed how the journal is organized. Input on the left, Output on the right. The kids answered a few questions about their journals as output practice. This is page 5-6

Page 7 is a list of prefix/suffix that I wrote in excel. I taught them how to look up word parts they don't know. I used the example Audiologist. They found Audi and Logy, and BOOM "Study of Hearing"

Page 8 is a list of sentence stems. I used this one from the Science Penguin

Thursday: We went over general lab safety rules, and I taught them how to use the Fire Blanket, Eye Wash station, and Fire Extinguisher.

We only did page 9 today. After we talked rules, I gave them this Where is Safe-T worksheet. They worked on it today and Friday. I can't find the actual downloadable site anymore...odd.

Friday- We did a fill-in-the-blank exercise to review safety rules for Before/During/After lab. This went on page 10.

The kids finished up their Safe-T worksheet and we graded it. I also showed the Lab Safety Rap that I always show.




It was really a pretty good week. These kids are pretty sharp. We dont' have nearly the Special Ed/504 load we had last year. It's like drinking a glass of clean water after drinking salt water for a year.

I'll try to find some time this weekend to tell you all about the little changes going on.


Until then,

Ms. Kat

Week 31-33

I don't even have the words. The past 3 weeks have been so challenging.

I'll start by listing the topics we covered every day.

Week 31
M- Reflection/Refraction (toughie)
T- Fossil Fuels (another rough one)
W- Alternative Energy (not bad)
Th- Rock Cycle (not bad)
F- Soil (they hadn't been taught anything about soil in previous grades, so meh)

Week 32
M- Changes to the Earth's Surface (why can't they keep the landforms straight?)
T- Moon phases (did good with the moon phases song)
W- Day + Night (did OK, keep confusing rotation/revolution still)
Th- Water Cycle (did great)
F- Ecosystems (did great)

Week 33
M- Photosynthesis
T- Food Webs
W- Physical Adaptations
Th- Behavioral Adaptations
F- Metamorphosis

Our scores for Reading/Math came in. The news wasn't good. Because of this, the superintendent took it upon himself to declare all students failing a test were to attend remediation during study skills (we had 4 of our 6 teachers remediating every day), and had the option of staying after school.

Then, in a sudden twist of events, he declared, TWO DAYS before the re-test, that the failing students were to attend a 3 hour boot camp for each subject they failed. These kids were pulled out of class to do this on both Thursday and Friday of week 33.

Those kids who failed undoubtedly were at risk of failing my test as well. So why not take them out of Science and let them miss not only the 2 re-test days (which are the two days before my Science test) but also the two days before that.

Granted, there's not much I can do at this point anyway, but that felt like a slap in the face. We're all still reeling.

Fortunately, our principal denied the Superintendent's request to have us come in and remediate on SATURDAY (they day before Mother's day, btw). And he approved my plan to use the time AFTER the STAAR re-test on Monday and Tuesday of next week as Science boot camp. The kids are still going to rotate, but I'm handing out materials to all of the other 5th grade teachers, and I think we're all going to do the same thing for 5th, switch to a different activity for our 7th, and a third activity for our 8th. That way, they get the Science, 3 hours on 2 days, 6 different ways.

Let's all cross our fingers and hope for a miracle, folks. It's going to take one to have us all survive. That, or a 6-pack of straight jackets.

~Ms. Kat

Week 29- April 11-15

Week one of STAAR review. Oh, how I've been dreading this. Fortunately for us all, it went well. A lot better than anticipated.

I cannot share pictures of my journal, as I'm using a product I paid for on TPT.  Here is the bundle I purchased. I'm running through them mostly in order.

Here is how my class is now structured.

1. Warmup- I'm using the Science Penguin's warmup bundle. I'm picking through them to find ones that are directly related to what we're covering in class. The topic every day comes from the previous day's topic.

2. Notes/Review- We go through the notes page in the Review bundle above. We box in, underline, circle, and star Key Words. The kids then do the accompanying activity that comes with each notes page. We go over it.

3. The kids each have a packet at their desk with 10 questions. I used the TEKS resource system to make these. If someone knows how to share, please let me know. I just went through the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade TEKS and found questions that went with each day's topic.

Every desk has a slip sleeve (sheet protector). They place their packet in the slip sleeve and use a dry erase marker to work the HAPPIER method. I put a basket on each desk to hold their glue, dry erase marker, wipe cloths (that I sewed myself, fleece), and red pens. I made sure to put wacky 70's duck tape around my pens and markers so no one makes off with them.

The kids spend the rest of the class doing the HAPPIER method on these questions. I leave about 7 minutes at the end of class to go through them and then pack up. The kids also have a bubble answer sheet (with 10 questions for each day of the week) that stays at their desk as well. We needed to practice bubbling, as that is one major issue from the practice test.

So far, I have already seen a dramatic improvement! The kids are getting more right than wrong, and I have a good chunk of them that either get 9 or 10 right every day! This makes me hopeful that we're all improving.

Here are the topics we covered this week:
Monday- Physical Properties of Matter (they did OK)
Tuesday- Mixtures and Solutions (they struggle with this)
Wednesday- Properties of Water (great job)
Thursday- Energy (they did amazing)
Friday- Circuits (good job)

I also changed up their homework. I've been pulling two half-sheet warmups from the Region 4 warmup book, and combining them for each day's homework. The kids are taking their sweet time getting used to them. They have multiple questions per page and usually an "Explain" component. I hope they'll do better this week.

3 more weeks until STAAR!

~Ms. Kat

Week 28- April 4-8

It's not often I miss teaching 7th graders. There were a few times this week when that happened.

Monday and Tuesday- I gave my kids the 2015 Released test as a benchmark. Very few didn't finish within these 2 days and had to continue working during study skills.

Wednesday and Thursday- We went over the test. Every question. Not in as much excruciating detail as I would have liked, but as much as I could with the 2 days I had budgeted.

When all was said and done, I had a 32% pass rate (by the new standard progression passing % put into place this year). This percentage doesn't take into account the 13 (yes, 13!) special ed kids who, despite my greatest hopes, are not likely to pass.

It's alarming, yes. But it's something to go on. When calculated using last year's passing standard, 55% passed. Yes, that's 23% of my students who are within 3 questions of passing. Crazy.

Friday- Fresh off of my feelings of inadequacy and absolute defeat, I pulled out my best acronym creating game. I wanted the kids to have a useful, easy to remember strategy to have them approach these questions like a scientist. Here's what I came up with.

H- Highlight the question (and underline/circle/star key words)
A- read your Answer choices (all of them!, even if they don't yet make sense)
P- read the Paragraph (STAAR is fond of their paragraphs)
P- Paraphrase the question
I- Illustrate (or read over the pictures they give you)
E- Eliminate bad answer choices (opinion words, always, all , never, none)
R- Re-Read the question (and plug your answer back in to verify, kind of like in math)

I spent Friday doing practice problems with this method, and they LOVED IT. They felt so much better having a game plan, and I could see improvement already. I'm now excited to move forward and see them (hopefully) flourish.

Fingers crossed for a smooth 4-week review.

~Ms. Kat

Week 27- March 28-April 1

What a week. The first round of 5th grade tests left us battered and broken, but we survived.

Monday- I brought the kids to the computer lab (for the first time this year). They had to select and research an animal of their choosing. I linked them to Animal Diversity Web, which allowed them to browse a plethora of organisms.

They had a research sheet that they had to fill out.

Animal Name_________________________
Environment___________________________

3 Inherited Traits (often found under Description or Physical Description)
3 Learned Traits or Behaviors
3 Adaptations (could be physical or behavioral)

They had to locate and print 2 pictures as well. One to go on their research sheet, and one for their poster (2 independent grades)

The goal of the project is to create a poster using this information.

Tuesday + Wednesday STAAR
We were very lucky to be considered Elementary even though we're on the junior high campus. The moment all 5th graders were finished testing (sometime after noon on each day) we took the kids outside and let them have recess/free time for the rest of the day.

Thursday- We continued researching in the lab. This was plenty of time for 99% of my students to finish. I had a few who just sat there wasting time, so they forfeited those two grades.

Friday- We spent the day in the classroom working on posters. Two of my classes did so poorly behavior-wise in the lab that they did bookwork instead (we never use the books except in the event of craziness that warrants a day of equally silent time).

8 weeks of school left.
We're going to need every inch of sanity we can get.

~Ms. Kat