Currently

This year is flying by!

I'm linking with Farley for her November Currently!

I am currently watching Iron Man on TV. I can't tell you how many times I've watched it lately. It's great background noise.

I'm loving the extra hour of sleep last night and knowing it will be daylight when I drive to work tomorrow.

I really need to clean my house. But I'm just not in the mood. It really has to happen soon. :)

I've had a nagging sore throat and sinus ick for a week. It has gotten worse this weekend and today my voice has been croaking.

So I really NEED a beach vacation. :)

I love the Pioneer Woman and I made her Hot Corn Chili Dip this weekend. It is going to become new favorite as soon as I get it spicy enough. I was taking it to a friend's party and she requested I make a mild version. It was good, but I'm sure the regular version will be awesome!

Have a great week!

Fall Break is Over

Time seems to have flown this year. We are in week 12 of school and I'm feeling a little behind. My class (8th grade) and I are spending a great amount of time on our interactive notebooks. I realized today that we are several weeks behind the topics and standards I covered last year. We are going more in depth, but I also think we are probably spending a little too much time on some topics.

We have a new residency teacher who joined the class this week. He will be with us for the rest of the year. Because of the scheduling of our teachers, he will shadow three of us. He will spend four blocks of his A/B days with the high school US History and American Government teachers and two blocks with my 8th grade US History classes.

His first fun assignment with me is a new seating chart. I have a class of talkers and it seems no matter how I've arranged them they can strike up a conversation with anyone. Mr. P noticed and I challenged him to try another arrangement. I'm all for rearranging as often as is necessary and we are constantly moving around for cooperative groups. I'm looking forward to seeing how he has them arranged next week.

For the first few weeks, Mr. P will be getting used to my classes and learning names. The residency position is new and is a year long clinical practice with one mentor and one school setting. Because of our small 7-12 grade school, Mr. P gets a little different experience but also a much broader base. I think it would be a little overwhelming at first. But it is a typical situation in most small rural schools. You don't get to teach one subject all day, many of my coworkers in HS have 3-5 preps and the flow of daily classes isn't easy. Those with lab classes seem to never have the same class back to back. So they set up labs for one class, teach, then set the lab for the next class, teach and then either set the lab for a third class or reset the lab for the first lab taught that day. It can be exhausting and sometimes frustrating.

I'm happy to have two major preps for classes and two minor preps. One of my preps is keyboarding and the students have self driven assignments. The second is a contemporary issues class and very research based. Students spend the majority of class time researching an issue and discussing/debating their finds. It is a fun class and not hard to prep and we have a nice variety of subjects/standards to cover.

Looking forward to fall!

October Has Arrived

Wow, eight weeks of school have flown by and I am so ready for fall break.

I have two classes that have me rethinking everything I've learned about classroom management. This is becoming very frustrating. So for now, I'm focusing on this month's October Currently from Farley at Oh' Boy 4th Grade.

I'm currently Listening to the white noise of NCIS and have had a cat in my lap purring. Very de-stressing!

I'm currently Loving the cool fall weather outside. I'm so ready for fall and winter!!!

I'm currently Thinking about going to a wonderful exhibit by Bruce Munro "Lights' a fiber optic exhibit in Nashville, TN. I'm going tomorrow evening and need to get my camera ready - batteries charged.

I'm currently Wanting my last block class to be quiet and focused, seems really hard for them.

I'm currently Needing fall break to arrive SOON!!!!

My current Treat is the free online grade book Engrade! We've been using this as a school for two years and it is wonderful. Parents and students have access. I give quizzes online and it allows my classroom to be fairly paperless. Students can upload work and I can put documents online for them to use. It has a lot of components that I don't use because of limited reliable student access. But it has made grades transparent for students/parents/teachers.

Parent Teacher Conferences

We've passed the mid-nine weeks point of our first quarter. My district holds two evenings of parent teacher conferences. Often the evenings seem to go slowly. Most of my classes in the past have been high school junior/senior level and my parents haven't really needed to conference.

This year, I had lots of interested parents attend. I think it is because my HS classes shifted to freshmen and my junior high parents really wanted to get a grasp on our new schedule. I was very excited by the turn out and I really had some good conversations with both parents and students.

Several of my students commented on our new Reading Like a Historian lessons. They enjoyed the conversations and class discussions. I'm really excited about using the common core integrated lessons even more after our conferences.

A few days later, I treated my World History classes to a Roman breakfast. I found some great Tuscan loaves and boule. I added olives and dates to the menu and had planned on cheese. But as I gathered things that morning, the cheese was left behind in the fridge. :(  I asked each student to simply try a small taste of the dates and olives. They didn't have to eat the entire item. Only a few students weren't up to the challenge. I knew that many of them had never tried dates before, I knew because I hadn't either! If I'd eaten dates, it had to be in the Christmas fruitcake.

The breakfast was a success. The more adventurous students loved exploring the new foods and they were full of suggestions as to what ethnic food they wanted next. I had to remind them I was feeding 40 on my grocery budget. They had some great ideas and we will definitely try new foods again!

Exciting School Activity Days

What do you do on those days in the school calendar that seem to override teaching? Here in the south Football Homecoming is a huge celebration. Last week we had Homecoming for the high school students and today our junior high celebrates the day.

This means that my students have very little focus on academics. All the young men can think about is the "big" play they are going make and the young ladies are all leaving school early to get beautiful! It is a very exciting day for my students. Those not directly involved are still excited because their friends are excited. But their focus is missing.

In addition to Homecoming, our library is having a book fair. I'm a huge supporter of the library and I take my students to the fair during class. If I don't work it in to my class, they only have 10 minutes during break.

Because, the majority of my last class is leaving to get ready for Homecoming, I'm using this opportunity to take the others to the fair. I usually plan a very "light" lesson. If I introduce new material, I will have to repeat it for a large number of students. This may also be the day I break out the History Bingo game.

How do you prepare for these days? I'm would love some new ideas.

Pocahantas

Several years ago, I had a class that refused to believe that Pocahantas and John Smith weren't married. After all, the Disney movie had them convinced and why would Disney be wrong about history. :)

In using Reading Like a Historian, they have a great lesson plan discussing this very topic. As I've gotten my materials pulled together for this lesson my co-workers couldn't believe how many students really thought the movie was true.

We did a quick survey of students in the hall, including some older students I had in that first class. They couldn't believe I was actually going to show my class the movie (about a 5 minute clip) because I had refused to show it to them. I can't wait until Monday to see if this group of students has as much faith in the movie as my Disney loving class!

Pinterest Project

I have been a traveling teacher for the past few years. :) I've been the floating history teacher and only in my computer lab a couple of periods in the day. Typically, my lab students haven't completed work that could be displayed.

This year, we have changed to a modified block schedule and as the schedule filled it became apparent that I would be teaching some of my history classes in my computer lab!! I love this because I get to do a semi-flipped classroom and really integrate technology into my classes. But I also can decorate and change the lab atmosphere into a total learning environment.

My students' work can be displayed around the room (I didn't want to take over another teachers space when I floated.) My first thing to make for display was washi taped clothespins. I kept seeing them on Pinterest and I knew needed a set.

They were easy to do and with a little Elmer's glue, they were up in no time. I still have some reorganizing to do. I need to group my word walls for the different classes I teach in the lab and I want to add some lamps so that we don't have to use the glaring overhead fluorescent lights.

But I will add things slowly, I have zero $$ in a decorating budget.