The Best First Week Ever!

Words cannot express how much FUN I had with my new 7th graders this week.  The Abydos training that I took this summer equipped me with some fabulous brainstorming strategies that my students loved.  Along with learning how to open lockers, my kids completed several brainstorming exercises, and by Friday, learned how to annotate a piece of writing for the first time.

Where the magic happens :)

The lesson frame including "Today's Objective" and "Today's Product".  We have a routine of reading the objective and product out loud together at the beginning of each class period so that everyone is on the same page.

 

Tuesday, we discussed goal setting as a class and students created a personal goal paw print, since our team is the Baylor Bears.  Each toe represented a subject goal and the center contained a 1st six weeks goal.  They will be displayed in the hallway outside of our rooms.  (Picture to come) The students then found an accountability partner, who is a peer they have in various classes.  We talked about appropriate responses and conversations they can have with one another if they observe their partner veering away from their goal.  We will be referencing goals often in my class.

 

Wednesday and Thursday, my classes completed a Kernel Essay, a Quick List, and a Quick Write to build the "Idea Bank" in their Writer's Notebooks, which are used daily in my class. 

I learned about the Kernel Essay in my training this summer, but if you want to check it out, I highly recommend purchasing Gretchen Bernabei's Reviving the Essay. I didn't expect them to love the Kernel Essay as much as they did.  The basic purpose of the Kernel Essay is taking a picture or phrase and breaking it into small questions for thought.  Students get 3 minutes to answer each small question, or kernel.  By the end of the 12 minutes, they have a page filled with a detailed memory. 

The Quick List and Quick Write strategies come from Jeff Anderson's Crunch Time.  Several of my students preferred these two strategies as opposed to the Kernel Essay.  Students number their paper from 1-12 and you give them a topic for each number.  They have a few moments to jot down a word or phrase the triggers a memory related to the topic.  Students choose the top three topics that they could write about, but have to put a star next to their top idea.  The teacher allows 10 minutes for students to complete a Quick Write on the topic that they chose.  To get their ideas rolling, I let them know that grammar and spelling were not essential during brainstorming, but getting all the details of their topic was the priority.  The kids left exhausted, but they learned so much.  One girl said, "My brain and my hand hurt, but I finally get it."

Friday, my students learned about the PROVE IT reading strategy and annotated a short personal narrative.  They closed class by posting an answer on the "Why do we write?" anchor chart.

We wrapped up the week with students posting an answer to "Why do we write?".  The responses were awesome!

On the agenda for next week: My students begin writing their own personal narratives and will be participating in a Clocking session!

A Tour of my Functional Walls

Every year I strive for my walls in my classroom to be as functional as possible for my students.  This year, they have turned out even better than I could have hoped.  The only two things left to add are the "Noteworthy Work" area and my "Question Stems" area.  Here is a look at my boards so far:

The 6 Traits of Writing are located on the front wall of the room and are easy for students to see daily as a reminder.

Cute display of "The Writing Process", again at the very front of the room easily in view for students.  They will be given a clothespin with their name on it and it can be clipped on whichever phase they are in.

 

"Parts of Speech" with illustrations on the side board, right above the weekly agenda and the daily lesson frame.  The red labels say "Today's Objective" and "Today's Product".

 

"10 Types of Literature" board right above the bookshelf.  Each poster contains a definition for the type of literature with illustrations as examples.

 

A closer view of the "10 Types of Literature" posters.  These are my favorite.

I like to call my table at the door "The Command Center".  Only 3 crates are pictured, but I actually have 6, one for each class period, where writer's journals and a pencil bag containing scissors, glue, notecards, and pencils are stored.  Students grab all their supplies at the door.  I also keep trays on top of the table with any printouts for the day that they can grab on their way in.  This has been my most important established routine the past four years.  Once students have it mastered, so much time is saved by not having to pass items out anymore.

I am not sure where this teacher desk came from, but it is the smallest I have ever seen with only one drawer.  It works well with a small room though.  I covered the otherwise beat up front of the desk with fabric that matches my file cabinet.  The red filing system stores all extra copies and make-up work.

Covered a clipboard from the Dollar Bin at Office Max with scrapbook paper, Mod-Podge, and ribbon that I already had at home.  I'll talk more about my clipboard system in a future post.

Desks will be delivered next week and we will be ready to roll.  Now I get to focus on content for the first six weeks.  

I've always felt that it is beyond important for students to understand the connection between reading and writing, so the reading teacher and I are trying something completely new in place of the dreaded Reading Log.  Stay tuned for my next post including the "Punch Card" system I have designed for our kids.  :)

Word Nerd

Recent staff development and discussions of the shared appreciation we all have for the words of the English language inspired the title for my "Word Wall" this year.  I have a few goals involving this wall that are much different than they were in my math classroom.

We are building this wall together, as well as categorizing.  It will include weekly vocabulary from the district curriculum that guides our writing and the process, as well as words we come across in our reading together.

I plan to invite my students to look for new vocabulary by using a few strategies from Abydos training.  My students will have a paper sack glued in the front of their Writer's Notebooks.  They will have small notecards readily available for writing down unfamiliar words that they are then invited to share with the class, explore, illustrate, and use in a sentence.  They will be able to store these notecards in their paper sack "Word Bank".  Each Friday we will add the most popular words of the week from our banks to the class wall.

A major goal I have for this year is building schema and worldly ideas in the minds of my students.  I plan to use a website that I recently fell in love with to add this into the weekly routine of my class.  Wonderopolis offers a "Wonder of the Day", including a vocabulary list and a neat short video that students can watch that relates to the topic.  Our warm-ups on Wednesday will be special as my class participates in "Wonderopolis Wednesday".  Students will read through the short passage for the wonder of the day and make note of any words they are not familiar with on their notecards, which will be placed in their Word Bank.  We will discuss the passage and how it relates to our lives, talk about the vocabulary, and students will then be able to visit our class Edmodo outside of class, where I will have the corresponding videos linked.

Nothing like building schema with a short warm-up that is interesting.  I really hope my students look forward to "Wonderopolis Wednesday" this year!

Getting Crafty With a Small Space

Finally I have reached the point of the summer where my thoughts primarily involve prepping my classroom and lesson plans for the beginning of school.  This year I have been presented with an interesting challenge of having a classroom that is significantly smaller than the room that I had for the past 3 years.  On one hand, this is helping me purge the things I do not need and organize.  On the other, my walls are metal... I'm talking solid metal that could serve as a bomb shelter.  Armed with various adhesives, magnets, and Velcro, I am determined to make this work.

Here are a couple of things that I have done so far:

 

I turned my file cabinet into a magnet board for memos, while the back side serves as a space for student make-up work.

 

I am loving the pennants I made that say "WRITE", which will be the topper for my welcome board beside the door.  I scored a great deal on cute scrapbook paper at Joann Fabrics this week, an it happened to be perfect for this project.

 

Since my desk is tiny and only has one drawer, I made a "Teacher Toolbox" that holds all of my supplies.  It eliminates the clutter factor that I came across with my old desk drawers.  I actually got this toolbox at Home Depot in April when they ran great deals on their organizational tools.  This one was only $15.

 

Some Mod-Podge to the top allowed me to customize my toolbox.

My next project for the week will be painting a bookshelf and hopefully finishing the set up.