The longer I teach, the faster the years fly by. I can't believe this year is half over! What I love about my job is that no years is ever the same and no two kids are ever the same! It's been a wonderful year so far! We finished off the semester by reading "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." I read this story in high school and never forgot it! It was so funny to me at the time. It's about a man who is hen-pecked by his wife and is a total wimp. In order to escape, he day dreams. In his day dreams, he is always a hero, never afraid to stand up to anyone. As we read the story, we analyzed techniques that James Thurber used in his story. Afterwards, students were asked to emulate Thurber's style by writing an additional day dream for the story. I gave them the option of working alone, with a partner, or in a group. When students finished writing their stories, I had them turn them in to turnitin.co...
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Just found out that my donorschoose.org project received full funding! That means I will be getting three new Chromebooks for my classroom. Thank you SO much for your donations. That is a step toward my goal of a class set. I am so very grateful. A special thanks to Vons of Carlsbad. They gave the final donation to push me over the finish line! THANK YOU AGAIN!
Hi Everyone, My dream is to have a class set of Chromebooks. If you read my blog, you know I love technology and use it as often as I can. I also use it in a variety of ways. I have resorted to begging in order to help my dream come true. I am starting off by asking for three Chromebooks. If you are interested in donating or reading about my request, just click on the link below. If not, just disregard this post! Also, if you donate by January 26th, they will MATCH your donation. However, you have to type in SPARK in the coupon/promocode. Thanks for your consideration! Donorschoose
Looks like pinning pins on Pinterest paid off (love that alliteration)! I found a great game called Grudgeball that I decided to try with my classes. Anything that involves throwing a ball is usually a hit with middle schoolers. We had a colon and semi-colon test coming up, so I thought the game would be a good way to review. Students were broken up into teams. Each group started off with ten Xs on the board. I created a review on Kahoot (one of my favorite sites) and projected the questions on the big screen. Everyone could see the question, but only one group at a time could answer. Students passed a Chromebook from group to group to answer the question. If they got it right, they got to erase two Xs off another team's score. Then, they got to shoot a basket from either the two point or three point line. If they made it from the two point line, they could erase two more Xs, an...
MY Ethan Couch (notice the shirt) Wow! What a fantastic week it has been for me as a teacher! My students have been working hard preparing for their assigned cases and getting ready to go to trial. Each group was assigned a case based on an article we read in class. One case was about a sixteen-year old boy named Ethan Couch. He had a blood alcohol level three times over the legal limit when the car he was driving hit a disabled vehicle and killed four innocent people. He receive one year of rehabilitation in Malibu and ten years probabtion as his punishment. His attorneys blamed his behavior on what was called "affluenza." Please ask your child about this word and how it was used to defend him in court! The other case involved for teens who threw an eight pound rock over an overpass and struck the passenger side of a vehicle. The passenger was Sharon Budd, a middle-school English teacher and breast cancer survivor. Sh...
Happy New Year! I hope that you all had a relaxing break. I must admit, I was ready to come back. During break, I slept in almost every day, read three books, baked three pies and various other goodies, hosted a Polish dinner on Christmas Eve, went for two beautiful hikes, wasted time on Pinterest, and spent time with family and friends. It was wonderful! Here is one of my creations: I love to bake, especially pies. Anyhow, we picked up right where we left off when I returned! The students didn't miss a beat, and I was impressed with the way they got right back to work. College Prep English This week we read three non-fiction articles to for our juvenile justice unit. Students had to read all three articles, circle key terms, and underline the author's claims. Two of the articles were about teens who are accused of committing terrible crimes. In one of the articles, a sixteen-year old was driving drunk and killed ...