With my mom and I both having summers off we have decided to wi-fi hop. While at the spot of the day we work for 2 or so hours on whatever we deem necessary. The only condition is that it must be productive and improve our lives in some credible way. (i.e. no facebook. heh!)
Today, during this time I discovered the gold mine that is teacher blogs/websites. Woah.
I have found endless ideas, and it's only day one. The first site I stumbled upon only led me to an even bigger and better resource, the same for the second, and the third, and the fourth... This obviously prompted me to jump on board. While, I'm not nearly as experienced or knowledgable as many of the teachers I read about today, I've decided that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I hope to document my progress on improving my classroom and students. Anything and everything goes this summer: beginning of the year introductions, classroom theme/layout, reader's workshops, centers, classroom procedures/routine. If I don't write it down, I don't remember it, if I don't remember it, I don't use it. And I definitely can't let what I've discovered NOT happen in my room!
My family and I went to Cedar Point in Ohio for a mini-trip this past week. It was awesome. If you love roller coasters I highly recommend going. The trip inspired my theme for the school year. See blog name, eh? eh? Get it?! I'm planning on also using this phrase (Feature Attractions) to showcase student work. I hope to make a roller coaster track and let students decorate a cart template to keep track of AR points, and I will use tickets to encourage students to keep "track" of their behavior.
I used tickets last year as a raffle, but I want to expand on that idea this year. I am going to look for cheap popcorn buckets from the dollar store and allow students to collect tickets individually for good behavior. Once 10/15/25 tickets are earned they will receive a prize. Receptively: prize box or candy choice/ book, or game time computer time/special lunch with the teacher and a friend. Once a prize is redeemed they may dump their tickets into a classroom bucket. The class will be working together as a whole to earn a special "Reading under the stars" reading class with the lights turned off, white christmas lights/flashlights turned on, and a treat. (Credit owed to Victoria Jasztal for the reward idea.)
I will post pictures as these ideas come to life.
I've also modified the idea of a driver's license from Victoria Jasztal to create an admission ticket for students to fill out at the beginning of the year. This will serve as an alternative to last year's boring get to know me questionnaire. I'm not sure how to attach documents, but once I figure that out I'll post that.
