A Successful Week 1

As the saying goes, week one is in the books.  I'm starting to remember most of my kids' names (it's always the quiet ones that are difficult to remember!) and the kids are getting into the routine of middle school.  I'm trying out some new things this year and I can't wait to see how they go.

The one thing about the first week that always gets me, though, is when to start with the curriculum.  Our district provides us with a calendar.  Not one with specific topics on specific dates, but one that maps out the units based on how many days the curriculum department thinks the unit should take.  Following their calendar, we get through the curriculum (albeit barely!) before we take the state test.  The problem with the calendar is instruction starts on the second day of school.  Yes, you read that correctly, instruction starts on the second day of school.

I'm not sure how things work in other places, but on our campus, we make sure that the students see all of their teachers, get fed, and get home.  That's the goal!  I teach 6th grade, so it takes about 2 hours to get the kids settled, give them a tour of the building, wrap up attendance, etc.  Our bells aren't working, every class period is a manual dismissal so that the schedule can be easily adjusted if necessary (it always takes longer than anticipated to get the 6th graders through the lunch lines!)  This year, I literally saw one of my classes for 5 minutes!  This year on Thursday, we had an assembly scheduled for our PTO fundraiser.  Oh, and then there was textbook distribution that we (the teachers) had to do ourselves.  The unpredictability of the first week just makes it really difficult to get started with curriculum!

That being said, there's that calendar beckoning us to get started, and there are some teachers who believe that what the calendar says goes!  Don't get me wrong...I love routines and I can't wait until the kids are into the routine and we're moving along.  I get that we have curriculum to cover, but I think it's counterproductive to try to get your students to do much when they haven't gotten their supplies, schedules are still being changed/adjusted and there are many other influences interrupting your day.

I chose to do a bit of review this week, but even then, some class periods got more of a review than others because some class periods got interrupted more than others.  Tuesday we should be able to hit the ground running....that's if they all remember to bring their supplies!

How do you manage the first week?  I'd love to hear how others handle the dilemma of the first week!

You know you're a teacher when...

You know you're a teacher when your willing to spend time, money, and energy laminating and cutting to get ready for back to school.

Well that's me!  I have literally spent hours laminating and cutting games and task cards over the last two days.  At one point, I was sitting next to the laminator, feeding sheets in and cutting while waiting for the sheet to go through.  The picture doesn't do the stack justice.  And, I'm still not done.

What is it about laminating?  Maybe it's that I typically see 150 students each day and by the end of the day the cards never look as good after being handled by all those hands.  Is it just my kids?  Mine can't keep from folding them in half, or better yet, trying to turn them into origami.  Some think they would look better with holes poked in them, while others think they should take it upon themselves to decorate them with whatever art supplies they have at their disposal.  Seriously, does anyone else have this problem?

So I laminate.  Because it looks pretty.  Because it'll ensure that I can use the resource more than once.  Because I'm a teacher, and that's what teachers do!

Minds on Math Chapter 10 - Sharing and Reflection

Chapter 9 stressed the importance of students sharing and reflecting upon their work.  Again, I felt as I was reading this, that this was something I did fairly well in ELA, but under-utilize it in math.  It is important for students to think about their not only the mathematics they are learning, but their own thinking.

On pages 162-163, Ward Hoffer lists questions to use in reflection.  As I read these questions, it dawned on me that I really needed to compile some of the great lists of questions that Ward Hoffer shares in the book.  So I set out to find my favorite lists.  I wanted to put them in an easy-to-use booklet that I could carry with me as I circulated the classroom.  This is what I came up with...

I'm going to cut them apart and have them spiral bound at an office supply store.  There were so many useful things in this book and I wanted a way to have what I considered to be the "best" tidbits at my fingertips.  

I really liked the rubric that Ward Hoffer included.  For me, this really helps assess explanations and it gives students some guidelines to consider when penning (or penciling) their explanations.  It also makes the assessment less arbitrary and is more useful than a credit/no credit system.

For those of you interested, we will be having a Twitter chat tonight at 7:00 p.m. CST about this book.  Join us #momathchat!