Weekly Menu

For the second week I am participating in the #Flipclassflashblog!  The topic today is

What is one thing (a tool, technique, pedagogy, app) that makes your #flipclass work better?


Right now my whole mantra is Keep it SIMPLE! My videos are super simple screencasts of me modeling a problem in my notebook. When they get to class they do an "Enter Ticket" and based on those results are put into groups. I work with the students who do not get it and release the others.


My biggest challenge was how to organize classwork and classtime, since my students are really needy and look for constant direction and assurance of what they should be doing. I decided the best way for me to plan everything and keep them accountable and give them a few choices or at least make them "think" they are having some choice was to make a Weekly Menu. Below is an example of this weeks menu for 6th grade.

It is still a major work in progress.  The first box of the day tells them the lesson we are working on, next up is the required practice work.  After they do the Enter Ticket I will usually pull out a small group to work on the first set of problems and do a gradual release.  The rest of the class can just go on and get to work on the requried items.  I also give each table a set of red, yellow and green cups for students to use to communicate with me if they need help.  If the cup on top is green, they are ok and should be silently working. If its yellow, they are asking each other for help and red means they need me.   This really works well (after they got used to it!) at first they would go straight to red, or put it on yellow so that they could talk about anything.  Took some training, but now it really serves its purpose.

The next three items is where their choice comes in.  They have to complete at least 3 Coach book lessons for the week, the Tenmarks assignments that I preset, open -meaning they can work on retakes,extra practice, Versatiles or IXL.  I usually can get about 12 devices and my class size is 18.  I haven't had any issues yet with not having enough devices.

I don't grade this weekly sheet, but I do make them turn everything in on Friday and I record any quiz grades from the week and then they get them signed.  I also use a Pink Slip system for behavior issues which for me is mostly students being unprepared and having to go back to their lockers.  I attach any pink slips they recieved during the week as well.

Oh and in my classroom each student has a folder they keep all of the work in. So they don't lose their weekly sheet. 

Made It Monday

July Blogging Challenge -Day 28

I am easing my way into back to school mode!  Here is a little something I made with my new washi tape.  I am not really a crafty person and I've never made a truly themed classroom, but I really like the "comic book/superhero" theme and I am going to try and do it a little bit in my room.  So here are two of my first little touches. 

I LOVE my pencil sharpener and my kids do too.  The point it makes on pencils have my kids spoiled so much that when theirs gets the tiniest bit dull they want to resharpen.  This year I am going to make sharpening pencils a reward.  Each day the can will start off filled with sharp pencils.  Whenever a student wants/needs to sharpen, they are going to take a sharp pencil out and put their dull pencil in.  At the end of class, I will draw a name of a student who has followed the rules and participated all class to sharpen all of the dulls from that class period.  Not sure exactly how I will do the drawing part, maybe give kids tickets when they are caught doing good, or maybe I will make laminated cards with their names on them and if they break a rule or don't do homework or something I take the card away.  Actually I'd rather reward good behavior than punish bad behavior so I think I'll go with the ticket idea.  Maybe combine the both and if they are caught being good I put their laminated card in the jar!  Okay, yeah that works!

My Secret Fear

Did you ever see that show Hoarders? Yeah my secret fear is that someday I will be on it.
I took these pictures of all the school stuff I have cluttered mostly in my bedroom, but sometimes it does leak out into the dining room. 
The reason its so bad I justify to myself is because I have no space!  I don't always have so many piles, but I wanted to bring a lot of resources home over the summer so I could redo a lot of my lessons.
My goal this week is to organize all of it and really use it like I intended!