Sharing Ideas

So I’m lame and forgot the update my thumb drive again, so I still have no posts to share.  Sorry about that.  Since I failed before , I will share an idea that doesn’t require me to post anything. 

 I use a variety of games for review in my classroom.  I don’t have time to share many, but I do have time for one.  I call this one “Horse Races,” and it could be used in any subject.  I divide the class into teams and assign each person in each team a number.  For instand, team 1 will have players 1-6, team 2 will have players 1-6 and so on.  Then I draw a series of numbers on the board with several lines underneath them.  It kind of looks like lined paper with numbers across the top. 

I ask the students if they have ever seen the game at a fair where you squirt water at a target and depending on how much water you get in the target is how fast your horse runs.  Well, this is like that.  I put a problem up, give the teams some time to work through the problem, and then I call a number, say 5.  Then all of the #5s in the room come show me their paper.  I only give their team credit if the problem is worked out on their own paper, work is show, and they don’t run or shove anyone on the way to show me their paper.  Any team who showed me the right answer gets their “horse” moved down one level.  Rinse and repeat until a team reaches the finish line or the bell rings.  I tell the students every member must show work on every problem because I will not give them points/prize/credit if they do not.  Happy horse racing, and hopefully I’ll remember to update my thumb drive next week.

Week 3 Update

Well, I still fail at blogging regularly as I”m teaching part-time at the college, 3 of my 5 evenings go to that and I don’t even sit in front of my computer.  Anyway, I’m loving the spiral notebooks.  Everything my students need are in the notebooks.  The ones struggling in my class right now are almost all students who are not using the notebook.  My students are staying organized and have access to everything they need.  I “grade” the notebook by putting  a couple of questions about the notes on the quizzes.  They are allowed to use their notebooks on quizzes, so I just throw a question or two on about the Standard we covered from September 3rd or the summary question on September 10th.  If they’ve taken good notes, they just copy this information from their notebook onto the quiz, and BAM!  Free points.  The first quizzes went really well.  Out of 120 students I only had 7 score below a 70%. 

I am also truly enjoying Snapgrades.  2 thirds of my families have internet access from home, and I can see when the last time a student or parent checked the grade on-line.  I’ve had really great response from both the kids and their parents, so I think I will be keeping it next year.

Next week I’ll be teaching about the distributive property and collecting like terms.  After some Cornell Notes, I give each student in the class a slip of paper with a term on it.  Each term has one other like term in the room.  Once the students find each other, they get an envelope of 30 like terms to collect.  The next day the students learn about the distributive property.  After we’ve practiced that and move on to Distribute and collect like terms, I have a three card match-up.  The students must put together the correct expression, with the distribution step and the collect like terms step. 

Once I get my thumb drive all up to date with the files on my work computer I’ll post this stuff.  The IT emporer closed WordPress, so I can’t upload from work.  I also try not to bring work home, so I don’t have all of my files here.  Anyway, I promise to share more soon

Week 2

I made some major changes in the way that I run things in my classroom this year.  Though I thought about it A LOT over the summer and brainstormed with other teachers, I’m still learning what works best for me.  As a result, the first week was a little more sloppy than I would have liked.  Oh well.  Things are right back on track this week.  I’m still trying to get the kids used to stuff, but we’re living and learning.

The new thing is a spiral notebook.  My students do their classwork, notes, and homework all in one spira notebook.  This is an attempt to help the students to learn more about organization and encourage them to use their notes more when working on assignments.  I started this at the end of last year, but the notebooks were only used for notes.  Putting everything else in their is a little awkward right now, but I think it’s going to work.

On another note, I decided on snapgrades.net for my on-line grading program.  So far it seems absolutely marvelous and I would recommend it to anyone looking for an on-line program like this.  I’ll let you know if it suddenly collapses or something.