Skip to main content

Back to School... OH SO SOON!

     I hope everyone has been enjoying their summer as much as I have.  Well aside from that silly surgery I had!  Right now I'm getting prepared to go back to work.  I only have a week and a half before teacher in-service begins and two and a half weeks before I'll be standing in my classroom in front of my students. Every teacher knows what this means; the classroom must be prepared, and the lesson plans must be ready to go!  This year I have added a new class to teach, so I can't rely on what worked great last year to supplement my new stuff, I am starting from scratch for this class.  I will be teaching 6th and 7th grade math, Pre-Algebra, and Algebra I.  I'm really excited about adding Algebra to my line up.  It was my FAVORITE class in high school. 

     This summer I have been revamping my lesson plans to include more activities and more student involvement.  I want them to discover and learn more and I want there to be less of my lectures up in front of them.  I've been reading two really great books this summer (click on the book covers to see them an Barnes and Noble):

     Flip your Classroom is by Jonathon Bergmann.  I'm sure everyone has heard of this teaching model.  I read an article in a publication about this approach and was really interested in learning more.  I will be flipping my classroom 3 or more days a week this year.  It isn't the exact model they did in their classroom, but it will work perfect in mine.  I recommend this book for anyone who wants to know how these two teachers made the journey.   They help you out by giving not only their successes, but their setbacks as well!

     Learning to Love Math is by Dr. Judy Willis, former teacher and current neurologist.  This book gives great insight into learning from a neurological standpoint.  Learn what happens in the brain when learning is happening!  I'm not quite finished with this book but I will say I am learning so much and I am surprised by what I have learned that is in concert with the flipped classroom approach.

     My other addiction this summer has been Pinterest and following other middle school educators' blogs.  I have learned SO MUCH.  As an added bonus I've gotten lots of freebies to use in my own classroom.  Everything from organizational materials, lesson plan ideas, and foldables.  Oh how I love foldables for math.  We will be working on an interactive notebook this year because I am going to incorporate writing into the lessons to prepare my students for the new Common Core tests. 

     I think it is safe to say I am excited about this school year.  I really hope to start a classroom blog, but we will see how I do with keeping up with this one first! 

     What are you doing to prepare for the new year?  What are you trying that is new? 



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Inspiration and a Smart Pen

I finally figured out how to work my little interactive white board tablet in my room.  I used it on Friday and my kids loved it.  I like it to, and it was really my inspiration behind getting my Echo smart pen.  When trying to figure out how to use my interactive white board tablet (we will call it IWBT) I thought well I'll just google it and go from there.  Turns out... it isn't made anymore.  Never the less, I was able to figure out what I was doing, and it is great for my classroom.   It operates a lot like a Think Pad.  At any rate, I've seen several blog post referring to smart pens and LiveScribe on several blogs I subscribe to and I thought I would check it out.  I found an Echo pen in Best Buy and fell in love.  I was on a spending splurge today and decided this was going to go one of two ways.  I either was going to get an iPad, or a Smart Pen.  Well... I got the Smart Pen. So I've been sitting at home and right now the new drivers are being done on my new p

A disappointment stumbling block.... (sigh)

Well I must admit I thought we were rocking along in math class, and then I get to test day.  I realize two things: 1)  The kids don't know the material like I thought they did. 2) Since so many of them don't get it, I know the problem is me. So today I am spending time trying to find a million ways to teach my kids about positive and negative integers and about greatest common factor and least common multiple (this for my 6th graders) so that we can retest on Wednesday.  I feel bad for the kids that completely aced my test, but I'm more worried about the ones that failed dramatically.  20%, 30%, and yes I even had a 0%. It is official.  Come Monday I will be off track on the lesson plan the teacher has left for me to teach.  It is also official that my teacher will be coming back November 16th, and I need to ensure when she comes back in it was like she never left.  There is a lot of pressure for a long term substitute.  It is much more different than if it was you

STEM Professional Development

Let me be honest.  I live for the summer.  I always knew teaching would be the perfect job for me because when I wasn't a teacher and spring hit... oh it was so hard to sit still in an office.  The last job I held before I taught was perfect for that!  I was able to turn off my fluorescent lights and open the blinds and let the natural light come in, and I would make excuses to visit clients so I could get out of my cubby and go!  Now, I just wait for that last school bell to ring and give my goodbyes for the year to my students and plan on a summer of organization, exercise, dieting, travel, crafting, sleeping in, and a new me.  Oh yeah, and I always intend to blog so much more. Reality is, I do a little bit of all of those things, and sometimes I even feel I've accomplished something, but partway into the summer...I get bored. There I said it!  The nerd in me gets bored and I start researching cool technology and thinking about all the new things I'm going to use in my