Mrs. Ritchie
In order to learn more about my 7th graders, we completed a fingerprint autobiography project! This was such an eye opener to student interests, family life, etc -- I'm so happy the kids enjoyed this creative project! :) The work I recieved was beyond expected! Way to go 7th grade! We will be learning about the 6 traits of writing and as time goes on... History Fair Skills! Until Next Time,
Mrs. Ritchie
0 Comments
I can't believe summer is gone and another school year is upon us! This will be my 3rd year blogging about what goes on in my classroom. Each year I strive to document new and different lessons, activities, and assessments in my 7th & 8th grade ELA classes. With the first week already down, here are some snap shots of activities we did over the course of the first week! On Friday, the very FIRST day of school.... Instead of the traditional teacher talk of rules & expectations for my homeroom, I started with having my students immediately take their shoes off. Yes, I did receive some looks like "is this lady serious??" Then they traced their feet and after we got supplies & lockers organized; we talked about how even though I didn't get the opportunity to see everyone over the summer... I still wanted to know what happened. In between our PBIS stations we worked & shared memories! This was a wonderful "Get to Know You" activity that provided higher order thinking skills. In their feet, students had to provide symbols of things that happened over the summer & describe a few events of their choosing. This was way more meaningful than some verbal games I did in the past, and I believe it set the bar that in my classroom... We will work EVERYDAY! :) Also, I did enjoy reading about their summer and if I had questions they verbally told me more in detail. 8th Grade Learning Stations, Surveys & Group Expectations.On Monday, all of my 8th graders participated in learning stations. Each station was equipped to provide me with more information about my students such as... 1. What they considered to be an ideal classroom, teacher, student, and school setting. (Writing prompt) 2. "Would You Rather Questions" (interests) 3. Goal setting bubbles (this year & 10 years from now) 4. Novel Interests (picking novels they would be interested in reading as a class) 5. Quiz your classmates - finding out similar interests, get to know you 6. Classroom Scavenger Hunt - A-Z We rotated stations every 10 or so minutes! The feedback I recieved was great!! 8-H & 8-R are familiar that in my classroom we do a variety of different tasks and often times that means working with a partner. On Tuesday, We reviewed GROUP Expectations! After talking about WHY it's important to be a team player, we got to work by completing a STEM challenge! Students were broken up into groups of two or three and were challenged to create a tower using only 50 notecards, one strip of tape & only 20 minutes! No outside materials were allowed & everyone had to participate in the construction process! The kids had a blast!! :) After testing out the structures, students filled out a group assessment of how they decided upon their design & the outcome of their group work! The 8th graders did an excellent job with getting into the routine of school and we finished our week reading "Charles" by Shirley Jackson & reviewing textual evidence! :) 7th Graders - "Scoot"My 7th graders did not have me last year, and this year I wanted to emphasize the importance of FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS! In order for them to fully understand this importance, we played a game called "SCOOT"! Scoot involves numbered cards with different tasks on each card. I usually play this as a review game, but this was perfect way to have my kiddos understand that they need to be responsible for their work! Not only should they follow directions... because it effects you if you don't... It may effect other classmates as well! The rest of the week consisted of learning about interactive notebooks, journals and their autobiography finger print projects! :) These will be up soon!! PBIS Celebration!We did many things this first week and I was totally impressed about how well the kids adjusted going back to school! I just know we're going to have a successful & productive year! Be on the look out for some projects "Finger Print Autobiographies" & "My Day With a Celebrity"! I promise they'll be up soon! ;)
Hope to see you at "Meet The Teacher Night", Mrs. Ritchie |
Archives
November 2017
Categories |