Yikes! It looks like my internet had a hard time dealing with the photos and text for my last blog. Try to ignore the technical difficulties, and when I get access to a stronger connection I can go back and clean it up a little bit.
This year I have made the transition from 6th grade to 8th grade Language Arts. My school splits each grade into 3 sections (A, B, C -yes, education folks, you may recognize these as tracks). At the beginning of the school day, students have a homeroom they go to for attendance, and then 15 minutes of Oral Communication practice. Following Oral Comm, they stay with their homeroom teacher for their first period of instruction. Each grade has 3 different classrooms, so over the course of the day, each teacher is visited twice by the same group of students. In the middle of the day, students have a 15 minute "lunch break". After 6th period, students return to homeroom for a 20-minute health and nutrition class. My schedule looks like this:
8-8:15 Oral Comm
8:15-9 Section B Reading
9-9:45 Section C Reading
9:45-10:30 Section A Reading
10:30-11:15 Section B Writing
11:15-11:30 Recess
11:30-12:15 Section C Writing
12:15-1 Section A Writing
1-1:20 Health & Nutrition
A huge advantage that sections give us teachers is smaller class size when students need them. My Section A has 18 students, B has 15, and C has 12. On days where my coteacher and I have a detailed plan and are really prepared, this means the students are getting a great amount of individual attention.
One of my recent obsessions is teacher blogs. Sundays are low-key here in Kosrae and keeping myself "busy" usually means napping in my hammock all day, finding a good book to read, or watching episode after episode of tv from my external hard drive (I've recently gotten into Breaking Bad). Lately I spend my Sundays reading blogs of teachers around the US and Canada. Not only am I getting great insight into fun activities other teachers have used, but I am also learning from their mistakes. Sometimes I am also a little mystified by (jealous of) all the technology US classrooms have these days. (Smart board? Whats that? All I have in my classroom is a chalkboard. No, but really, I would kill for an overhead projector, which seems to be a relic of the ancient past in the US)
Reading Olympians is a program I stumbled upon recently that helps students learn affixes and root words. I am a Greek Mythology nerd, so I've been super excited about this and hope it goes over well with my kids. This program divides affixes and root words into sets of 10, and each set is given the name of a Greek God or Olympian. The first set is Nike, which covers a- anti- bi- bio cent -less post- pre- sub- and un-.
This year I have made the transition from 6th grade to 8th grade Language Arts. My school splits each grade into 3 sections (A, B, C -yes, education folks, you may recognize these as tracks). At the beginning of the school day, students have a homeroom they go to for attendance, and then 15 minutes of Oral Communication practice. Following Oral Comm, they stay with their homeroom teacher for their first period of instruction. Each grade has 3 different classrooms, so over the course of the day, each teacher is visited twice by the same group of students. In the middle of the day, students have a 15 minute "lunch break". After 6th period, students return to homeroom for a 20-minute health and nutrition class. My schedule looks like this:
8-8:15 Oral Comm
8:15-9 Section B Reading
9-9:45 Section C Reading
9:45-10:30 Section A Reading
10:30-11:15 Section B Writing
11:15-11:30 Recess
11:30-12:15 Section C Writing
12:15-1 Section A Writing
1-1:20 Health & Nutrition
A huge advantage that sections give us teachers is smaller class size when students need them. My Section A has 18 students, B has 15, and C has 12. On days where my coteacher and I have a detailed plan and are really prepared, this means the students are getting a great amount of individual attention.
One of my recent obsessions is teacher blogs. Sundays are low-key here in Kosrae and keeping myself "busy" usually means napping in my hammock all day, finding a good book to read, or watching episode after episode of tv from my external hard drive (I've recently gotten into Breaking Bad). Lately I spend my Sundays reading blogs of teachers around the US and Canada. Not only am I getting great insight into fun activities other teachers have used, but I am also learning from their mistakes. Sometimes I am also a little mystified by (jealous of) all the technology US classrooms have these days. (Smart board? Whats that? All I have in my classroom is a chalkboard. No, but really, I would kill for an overhead projector, which seems to be a relic of the ancient past in the US)
Reading Olympians is a program I stumbled upon recently that helps students learn affixes and root words. I am a Greek Mythology nerd, so I've been super excited about this and hope it goes over well with my kids. This program divides affixes and root words into sets of 10, and each set is given the name of a Greek God or Olympian. The first set is Nike, which covers a- anti- bi- bio cent -less post- pre- sub- and un-.
I went over to good ol' Ace Office Supply, purchased folders for each of my kiddos and made sure each folder had all of the necessary materials for the Nike set. Materials include flashcards that can be cut out (though I probably won't have my students cut them out because they will lose them right away. Unfortunately Ace doesn't sell those binder rings that open and close- if anyone wants to send about 50 my way, that would be super helpful), a worksheet, and a rhyme that goes with each root/affix to help students remember the meaning. At the end of the unit, all students that pass the assessment with 80% or higher move up to the next set- Poseidon.
These posters will go up on the wall in our classroom. There is a Greek column for each student, and when a student successfully finishes one set, they will add a sticker to their column with that Greek figure's name. Tomorrow I plan on introducing Nike, the winged Goddess of Victory to my students and we'll go from there. I'll leave you with this hilarious picture I found on the back of one of my 8th grader's exams a few weeks ago.