Top 5 Back-to-School Activities

I have officially survived my second first week of school! I’m excited about a great year with my new bunch of kids, and I’m also looking forward to starting to get into a regular routine again. In this post, I’m going to share my five favorite back-to-school activities. In the midst of going over rules and procedures, these are some fun activities that help me get to know my class and that help them get to know each other.

1)   The Teacher from the Black Lagoon

I always am curious to know what my students have heard about my class and me. This year, I gave them all an index card and asked them to write down one thing that they’ve heard about sixth grade. It was interesting to hear everything from “You’re a great teacher!” to “There’s too much homework!” After we discussed what they’ve heard, I read The Teacher from the Black Lagoon and talk about how sixth grade will be what they all make of it.

2)  Name-O-Grams

This was a great activity that I learned from my cooperating teacher during student teaching. After sharing a few things about myself and showing my own example, I give everyone a sheet of construction paper and have students write their names in bubble letters. They then have to fill each letter with words or pictures about themselves. When they are finished, I have them cut them out and back them on colored construction paper. They then present their name-o-grams to the entire class and explain what they put in each letter. It’s a great chance for me to learn a little bit about them all and gauge their public speaking skills. As a bonus, I hang them up outside our room and leave them up all year. It lets everyone know a little bit about the individuals in our room and brightens up the hall.

The outside of my room

3)  Class Mission Statement

In small groups, I have students brainstorm:

    1) Who we are
    2) What we want to accomplish
    3) How we will accomplish those things

We then have a class discussion where we put everyone’s ideas together on the board and create a classroom mission statement. I then write the final statement on poster board and have students read and sign it, acknowledging that they agree to our mission. I then hang it up right outside our door. Every time students come in the room, they are allowed to *respectfully* hit the sign like some sports teams do as they exit the locker room and head to the field. This builds a sense of a team in our room, and it gives them something productive to hit instead of jumping up to hit the doorframe.

 Our Mission Statement this year

 4)  Back-to-School Bingo

This is a classroom favorite! During the past two years, my class has begged to play it every day! I first give the students the sheet with all of the categories on it and ask them to fill it out. When they finish, I give them the blank board and have them randomly write their answers from the other sheet on it. They then cut up the sheet with the categories on it and place the squares in a container. I then use those sheets as calling cards. It gives students the opportunity to see what they have in common with other people in the class. Below are the links to both files needed for this game.

The copy with categories that students fill out first and then cut up and give to you: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5c-jgFtsNGNUlBvcjVjWmxib2c/view?usp=sharing

The copy students put their answers on randomly and then use as their card: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5c-jgFtsNGNT1dzTmJ5c2VjbGc/view?usp=sharing

5)  Dear Miss Barnauskas…

I have students write a one-page letter to me about themselves. Once again, this helps me get to know them better, and it also gives me an idea of their writing abilities. I also have students write these letters in a journal, and I write a short letter back to them because I believe that it helps me build unique and meaningful relationships with each student.

That’s all the buzz for today!

Giving Blogging Another Chance: Less Than a Week Until School!

Welcome Back to My Blog!

Now that I am going into my second year of teaching sixth grade and like to think that I will have a little more time, I’ve decided that I will rejoin the blogging world! While I had wonderful experiences during my student teaching and my first year of having my own classroom, blogging took a backseat to more important tasks.

As of tonight, I have three more days until our teacher work day and back-to-school night and only four more days until our first day of school! In this post, you’ll hear about a trip to the fabulous free teacher store (AKA hoarder’s paradise) and get a sneak peek at what my classroom looks like so far. Enjoy!

A Trip to the Free Teacher’s Store

Since I work in a Title I school, we have access to a free teacher’s store in town. They have all types of random supplies, and as long as it fits in your two bags, you get to take it for free! Today was the first day teachers from our district could go, and I was lucky to be invited to tag along with the most fabulous partner teacher ever! After getting some McDonald’s Diet Cokes, standing in the blazing sun, and fighting through the crowd of teachers, we each escaped with about 30 lbs of supplies as well as an additional 16 binders each. To say the least, it was pretty much the equivalent of Christmas for us! Here we are with our carts full of goodies!

Classroom Sneak Peek!

Even though we don’t have many days before school starts, I still feel like I have a lot of work to do! After last year, I decided what worked and what didn’t and did a TON of rearranging! I also decided to go with a nautical theme this year, which I absolutely love!

Here is one of my bulletin boards that I will use to have students showcase their best work. I just laminated some scrapbook paper and stapled it up for instant cuteness!

This is probably my favorite Pinterest project ever! I got a magnetic board from IKEA and covered it with different scrapbook paper patterns to help me keep track of where different kids are throughout the day. I’m planning on having them move the magnet with their name on it to “Ready to Learn” at the beginning of the day to take attendance. We’ll see how it works!

This is my calendar/standards/goals board. I’ve purchased some really cute standards and essential question posters from TPT that I want to display for each unit, and I want to display some goals and data for students so they can take ownership of their success! Once I get this board up and running, I’ll post another picture.

Clearly, I’m big on magnets this year! This is in the corner of one of my front whiteboards, and I’m planning on using it for keeping track of students who need to spend time sitting out of recess or need to have a phone call home about behavior. (This was another Pinterest project that I love!)

Last but not least, here are a couple of my bulletin boards that will stay up all year (if not longer!). They are up by the ceiling and are a HUGE pain to put up. However, I love the way they turned out!

After I finish things up in the next few days, I’ll be sure to post a complete tour of my room.

That’s all the buzz for today!

I See a Story

As I sit at the counter typing up a few lesson plans for the week, I can’t help but be excited to get back to my sixth graders tomorrow. As much as I have loved every second of my (unexpected) long weekend, it’s time for me to get back in the classroom again.

In creating my lessons, looking up standards, and writing objectives, I keep thinking about the individual uniqueness of each of my students. Due to the current culture of education, many times teachers are pressured to look at their students and see a test score floating above their heads. Or perhaps, we are supposed to look out and see which students are proficient, which ones need an intervention, or which ones are quickly falling farther and farther behind and need immediate help.

However, when I look out at each individual student, I see a story that cannot be summed up in any type of label, number, letter, or score. I see stories of students who are trying desperately to find their place in their communities, their school, and the world. I see stories of students are trying to navigate the treacherous waters of growing up, making and keeping friends, and deciding who they want to be. I see stories of students trying to turn their lives around despite everything that is holding them back and stories of students who want to succeed but don’t know where to start. I see stories that contain more challenges and uphill battles than I have experienced in my own 22 years. I see stories of courage, faith, and resiliency.  While some stories have common threads and themes, they are all incredibly different, heart warming, and inspiring in their own ways.

As a teacher, I am constantly wondering how I can help shape these individual stories. I know that I cannot change what has already been written, but what can I, as an educator, write in these stories that’s more than a test score, an assignment, or a grade? Maybe I can be the one who says just the right thing to help a student see the value of an education. Maybe I can be that role model someone has been desperately looking for everywhere. Maybe I can be the one that writes, “I believe in you.”

Got Grit?

In the first four weeks of student teaching, I am now sitting in my room during what is now my FIFTH snow day. You know you’ve had too many snow days when you’re wishing you were in school and starting to think that five day weeks are a conspiracy. So as I take shelter from the dangerous wind chill, I bring you a new blog post.

Over the past week and a half, my cooperating teacher and I have been waging a war against laziness. On Wednesday, we had multiple conversations with our class about how laziness would no longer be tolerated since we know that they are more than capable of completing “top quality work.” However, I was not satisfied with leaving things on a negative note, which led to the commencement of operation grit.

In brainstorming lesson ideas, I remembered one of my TED talk videos and pulled it up for inspiration. (Watch it below for an extra boost of motivation!)

After that, idea after idea started to pop into my head. I decided that for morning work, students would respond to the following prompt in their Reading Response Journals:

What qualities are needed to become a successful person?
How do successful people reach success?

Explain your answers.

As students finished, I invited them each to come up to write one of the qualities they wrote about on the board around the prompt. It was actually quite inspiring to read 32 different qualities of successful people on the board. We had everything from pride and try, to athletic and courage, and to innovative and organized.

Then we watched the TED talk above and discussed what grit is and why it is important to be gritty. Finally, after I knew that they understood the meaning of grit, we brainstormed about what grit looks like in the classroom. As they offered their responses, I recorded them on the board. Many of them astounded me with their willingness to continue to offer response after response and actively participate in the conversation. They were then each given a piece of computer paper, and I instructed them to make an acrostic poem using the word grit. Below are a few of my favorite examples.

                                              

I’m hoping to make a bulletin board of all of their acrostic poems, and I will definitely share a picture once it’s up!

I am very excited that my teacher gave me the opportunity to teach this lesson because while we weren’t spending time mastering Common Core Standards or preparing for the state’s standardized test, the students were learning valuable life lessons. After discussing grit, they know that they are all capable of achieving great things both in school and in life with hard work and effort. If this lesson made just a few of them believe in themselves a little bit more, I think it was a success.