Well, I have had two dreams thus far that I can recall, so Hi Ho Hi Ho It's Off to Work I Go!
So this morning, I got up out of bed, worked out and mopped my kitchen floor before heading off to school. Somewhere in there I managed to eat breakfast and lunch too. I was able to spend almost 3 hours in my class today. I felt a sense of accomplishment and was going to stay a little longer despite the suffocating heat in my room. That is until I saw a spider. I am not talking about the itsy bitsy spider either. This thing was HUGE. I am talking the size of a Volkswagon Bug. Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration, but I wigged out when I saw it. I still have the heebie jeebies just thinking about it. It is going to be him or me, but I have to muster up the courage to go and find someone who can take care of it for me. I don't think my husband will come down to school, or I will never hear the end of it if I ask him.
Enough about the giant spider.
I have been contemplating some new techniques that I want to try to help engage students and manage behavior. I have been looking at Whole Brain Teaching. I am not sure if it is too young for my middle school students, but I figure there are a few concepts I can try. As I get more proficient at implementing the techniques I will decide if it is right for me and my classes. For more information on whole brain teaching visit http://ashleytipton.weebly.com/whole-brain-teaching.html .
Another technique, I want to develop more is using an interactive notebook in my Social Studies Classes. I used to do this a long time ago when I taught fourth grade. When I switched back to middle school, I dropped this from my bag of tricks. It is time to bring it back. Back when I did interactive notebooks before I had kids create foldables to put in their notebooks, but I did not have them reflect, and that is an important step in interactive notebooks. Trolling the internet and pinterest there are thousands and thousands of ideas for interactive notebooks. After reading and researching some more I believe that this will become an effective strategy to teach and engage the students.
I have also been thinking about using a point system for rewards. I am not sure how I will manage this yet, especially with for classes of 30 or so. I do know that I want to give each small group a check list and point system for each class procedure, homework, warm-up activity, class participation etc. I want to tie this in to my Decide Now app, but I have too still work out the logistics of it all. On pinterest the other day, I saw a great idea for scratch cards to be used as rewards. The excitement is in the surprise, the trouble is the labor intensive process to make them. Maybe I can make that one of the options on Decide Now. I am still thinking about it.
My mind is a whirlwind of ideas for the new school year. You probably noticed this when you read this post about whacky dreams, giant spiders and new teaching strategies. Maybe my scattered and random thoughts are because of the excitement of the new year. Maybe it is because of my ADD ( Self diagnosed!) , or maybe it is because summer is coming to an end. What ever the reason my teacher brain will calm down in September and I will be more focused. Once that happens, I can write a whole post on one topic. Now for that spider...