Monday Made It

Today I am joining up with 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It. I have been wanting to join in since I started blogging, but never had.

This summer my daughter, Regan, has been going to the art camps offered at Michael's on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Every week they focus on a different continent with their art projects. Here she is making her pyramid with a mummy inside.

While she is making her crafts, I am required to stay in the store for two hours. Do you know how hard it is to stay in Michael's and not buy anything! It's only happened one time so far and that's because I left my teacher ID at home. One of the items I have been trying to work on was a title sign for when my students get an 85% or higher on their tests. Most of the teachers at my school have kids sign a bulletin board that says something about all-star students. The math teacher on my team has her Mathletes and has a different poster board for each snapshot (quiz) or test that the students sign. If they got a 100%, they get to sign a gold medal and glue it onto the poster board the rest of the students sign. At first I was going to go with Owl-some instead of awesome and have the 100s sign an owl, but that seemed so elementary school. I wanted to come up with something my students could really get into and that's where Regan's classes come into play. Two weeks ago, Michael's had their 12 X 12 scrapbook papers on sale and I saw one with mustaches on it and it made me think. A number of my students wear t-shirts with mustaches and jewelry with mustaches and use duct tape with mustaches to cover everything. So I got on my phone and searched for sayings with mustaches in it and found one. FAN{TACHE}TIC! And a light bulb went off. I went running around the store and this is what I came up with:

I used black foam board, 2 pieces of mustache paper, 4" black letters, 4" silver letters, and a few glitter mustaches to make my title sign. I love it and can't wait to hang it on a wall in my classroom!

I even found this print out over at Creator's Joy to use for my kids who get a 100% on a snapshot or test.

Until next time.

Robyn

Let's Get Acquainted - Advice for New Teachers Linky

I am joining up with Latoya over at Flying into First for her Let's Get Acquainted Linky

This week's topic is advice for New Teachers. I remember my first year teaching. I got hired in the middle of the school year and didn't even get to meet my fellow teachers until lunch time on my first day. Then several years later, I switched to a new school system and it was like starting all over again. So here is my advice, whether you are straight out of college or switching to a new school:

BUY - low odor dry erase markers. The smelly ones give me and some of my students horrible headaches. I teach 6 classes a day and couldn't take the smell all day.

ALWAYS - be consistent. This is a really hard one for me, but you have to apply the rules the same to everyone. If you're not, the students will let you know.

NEVER - gossip. Don't talk about your fellow teachers. You never know when someone is listening, especially in a school.

FIND - a friend, another teacher who can help or mentor you. I had lots of questions about how my new school ran once I got there. I was lucky in that my district provides a New Teacher Mentor to all of its new teachers. There are two mentors for the five middle schools in my district.

MAKE - friends with the secretary and the janitor. This will make your life so much easier. Whether you need a few copies made in the middle of class (not the secretary's job) or a piece of furniture moved, being friends with these two is very important.

BE - prepared. In middle school, if you are not prepared your students will eat you alive. Always have more prepared than what you think you will need. I write my agenda for each class on the board and I cross off each activity as we go. If we don't get through it all, I move it to the next day if I need to.

Head on over to Latoya's blog to see what advice other teacher bloggers are giving.

Until next time.

Robyn

Show Me Sunday: Educational Time Fillers

I am so enjoying being in blogland. I am finding great resources and learning a lot from my fellow bloggers. Today I am linking up with 3-6 Free Resources for their Show Me Sunday linky. This week is about time fillers. Everyone needs those!

In my school division there is a big push to use Smart Pals or white boards in our classrooms every day and  for the students to be writing from bell to bell, so a lot of  my time fillers and reviews revolve around them.

1. Maps, maps, and more maps! For history class I always have a map in the Smart Pals. If we finish early, I ask the students different questions and they fill in the map with the dry erase markers. It is a great way to review too.

2. Brain Quest Questions and Answers to Challenge the Mind - These are a huge life saver. I will use these to ask a question and the kids will write their answers on the Smart Pals (the backside of the map is blank) or on white boards.

3. Parts of Speech Game - I have index cards with lots of words that we use in our writing class. I will pull one at random and the kids have to write down what part of speech it is. Some times I have one of the students pick a word from her vocabulary dictionary we create in class and the rest of the class has to write down the part of speech and which class the vocabulary word came from (history, reading, or science).

I hope that you will be able to use some of these! Don't forget to visit 3-6 Free Resources to get more time fillers and to link up yourself.

Until tomorrow.

Robyn