Growing Mind and Bodies

Being a middle school teacher is way more than teaching students math.  Some people say they would never want to teach middle school but truthfully if you can teach middle school, you can do ANYTHING!

Including but not limited to, my role as a middle school teacher is to:

• Encourage students to join different clubs
• Encouraging some kids to talk, to anyone!
• Help them deal with parental issues
• Organize their lives including but not limited to folders, lockers and schedule. 
• Be there to listen when they don't know what do to about a boy/girl
• Know everything about their 'time of the month'
• Know when students need to go to the bathroom for a BM
• Hold a Pokemon lunch once a week, because they still like to play with their friends
• Modeling correct manners and following through with please and thank you's
• Making sure they 'have' something instead of 'got' something
• Introducing them to things in life, like the prices at the grocery store

And probably my favorite roll as a middle school teacher, measuring their physical growth.  Some boys grew 4 inches from the start of the year!  WOW

What other roles do you play other than teacher? 

Color Cycle Year TWO!

So it finally happened today, Color Cycle is back!  Once again, Color Cycle is a volunteer organization for students.  I don't get paid to do it,  I do it because I believe in it!  If you remember, last year we collected 44 pounds of markers that we sent off to Crayola to be recycled.  That doesn't seem like a lot but it is 44 pounds that didn't end up in a landfill.

Today after school, 7 dedicated students (6 really and the other had to be there) helped out.  I had some students walking around the school recording room numbers/teachers names where bins would go, the boys chose to clean the bins and the rest were assembling the signs that go on the bin.  After the bins were clean and their signs was affixed, we went off and put bins in 20 classrooms with 6 more that still need them.

I am excited to get this off the ground and start doing a small part to help the environment.  My goal this year is to incorporate some of the SBL into math/homeroom classroom and expand the program!

Math Chat lead by Students!

Over the past three years, I have learned that getting students to discuss math is sometimes more important than anything else.  I always encourage students in my classroom to talk to each other about WHAT they are thinking and WHY.  Today, in my last math class of the day, it happened and it was a dream come true!

The warm-up on the board was a question about Mr Rey's bank account.  He had a balance of -26.00 and deposited some money and ended up with a balance of 23.00.  I pulled this question from our fall benchmark test and thought I would see how they did.  They had 4 options to choose from.  A. $3 B. $23 C. $43 D. $49.  I instructed the students to justify/prove their answer.  Students talked talking to each other at the table clusters then before I knew it, students were talking to each other across the room!  I made a quick decision, pulled some tables together and made one large 'conference' table as the kids called it.

The things that I noticed that students were doing...
- Speaking up for kids that were too shy to share
- Silent leaders surfacing
- Little to no off task behaviors
- A sense of group and ownership
- Explanations beyond the, "I picked C" solutions
- Students asking other students to explain
- Modeling of real life problems/discussions/solutions

When I felt that they were at a point where they had come to a general consensus, I stepped in and summarized the behaviors I listed above.  Then we went on to present our findings.  This group of 13 kids had 5 different ways to solve this one multiple choice problem!  I was so proud of them and what they had accomplished without even knowing it.   Needless to say, GEMA had to wait but this was too good of a teachable moment to pass up!

Ever have something like this happen?  Till another day!

Katie

Color Cycle Wrap Up!

It has been a successful year of collecting markers, expos, highlighters and sharpies at the middle school!  What started as a commercial I saw on television ended up saving a total of 44 POUNDS of garbage from going into a landfill!  Instead it was turned into clean burning fuel!  Visit Crayola to learn more about the program.

Here were the collection numbers by quarter..
Quarter 1:   8 pounds
Quarter 2:   8.5 pounds
Quarter 3: 11.5 pounds
Quarter 4: 16 pounds

Next year, I think that Color Cycle will 'turn it up' and expand our efforts!  What will you do at your school to help the environment?

Is this the End or just the Beginning?

 My 8th graders graduated on Tuesday night and I miss them greatly already.  I have spent the past 2 days scheduling the current 6th graders and can't help but think ahead to next year.  I have found my mind wandering, focused on how can I make my lessons better!

I have to remind myself that it is still 3 months away and that I need to take time some for myself but then I think, HOLY COW 3 months to prepare!  Never the less, to settle my battle, I have started to come up with goals.

Goal 1:  Incorporate STEM.  I know it seems like a buzzy term right now but what I want to incorporate are the ideas and the exposure to my students.  The idea that math is related to other subjects often times stumps my students.  How could it be?  Well dudes and dudettes, it is related to other things!  The other part of STEM that I like is that my students would be exposed to math in real life.  I know that math is everywhere and slowly everyday I have attempted to share this with kids but if I can make the solid connections with engaging and high interest activities that focus on the process standards for science, align with the CCSS for math and the SAMR model, it's a win win for all!

Goal 2:  Tweak my SBG practices.   As this was the first year I followed the SBG model changes need to be made.  There are some things that I really liked such as students could show progression and I knew exactly where every student's strengthens and weaknesses were at a glance but there were things I didn't like either.  I need to figure out a better way to show that I care about homework but to emphasis that it is practice and get the kids to be intrinsically motivated to do it as opposed to extrinsically motivated by rewards.  This is a big one!

Goal 3: Let students help in the classroom.   I can admit that I have a hard time letting kids to things in the classroom because I may be slightly a perfectionist.  Slowly over the past two years, I had a group of students that knew this about me that helped me out and did a fantastic job.  Now that those beloved 8th graders will be replaced by unsuspecting 7th graders, this makes me panic! So, I promise to myself to create 'Classroom Jobs' so that students can take ownership of the classroom.  I also promise to not redo a job at the end of the day because students won't benefit from that!

Goal 4: Learn to really do the Rubik's cube.  I can do it about halfway but I would really like to dazzle the new kids by completing it without aides.  In addition to the 'cool' factor associated with this(yep, kids still think it's cool!), it sparks interest in transformations which relates back to incorporating real like mathematics into the classroom!  Double Bonus.

I will update my goals as I continue on into the summer.  Do you have any goals for next year?  I would love to hear about them.  Thanks for reading!

Color Cycle, A student lead recycling program.

A few months ago, I was watching TV one night and saw a commercial for a marker recycling program sponsored by Crayola.  Recycling has always been something I have been interested in and decided to check it out.  Turns out it was really easy to sign-up and start the program at school.  I gathered a few of my most motivated 8th graders, cleaned out the local Deal$ store of small garbage cans and placed bins in EVERY classroom at my middle school with the sign below attached to it.

This past month, we sent our first box of markers to Crayola to be recycled!  We have collected 16.8 pounds of markers, highlighters and expo markers so far this year!

 The kids were really excited about having a box of old markers that didn't work!

 We taped the box up, printed off the FREE shipping label and scheduled the pickup at our school.  Off they go to become clean burning fuel and NOT to a landfill.