Saturday, September 7, 2013

Week One Reflection

Well, week one of my 2013-2014 school year is officially over.  I always seem to forget the craziness the first few weeks of school brings as the students and I work at getting into our routine for the year.  I will say that I find myself a little more exhausted at the end of the week than I have been in the past, but that could also be due to me having a very active 19 month old at home as well as having a busy schedule after school with coaching volleyball.  A clear sign of me being tired was the fact that at 8:30 on Thursday night all I really wanted to do was crawl into bed, but I still had things to plan for Friday so sleeping had to wait a little longer.

All this being said, I will say that this first week of school has probably been my favorite by far, and I did not do anything curriculum related all week.  Part of me felt the pressure when I heard my students talking about homework and quizzes that they were already having in other classes, but after reading so many different ideas about how important those first few days of school are for building relationships from my PLN on twitter I am hoping that this week will pay large dividends in the long run.

I already posted about how my students made figures to represent themselves out of pipe cleaner and movie trailers about their summer on the first day of school.  These are how the bulletin boards turned out after they attached their faces.


 
We spent the next couple of days in Math class working on the O.R.E.O. project which can be found at http://op2015.weebly.com/.  All my students took turns stacking oreos and then we found the class average.  I do not have the actual data with me, but the 8th graders were winners averaging over 13 cookies per stack.  I had 3 different students make it to 17 cookies in their stack, and then of course they asked me to do it too.  My record was 20 :)
 




 
On Thursday during what we call Advisory Time I was able to introduce my plan to implement Genius Hour to my 7th grade homeroom.  This idea came about because I wanted there to be a more constructive use of this time instead of just working on homework.  Its not that I do not think that they shouldn't have the time to do some of their work, but too often I would hear 7th graders say that they want to be in choir (which is their other option during this time), but they don't want to give up the extra time to do their homework.  I wanted to then make the time about pursuing their interests which might be singing in choir, or now researching their passions for their genius hour project.  After showing them a quick Prezi to introduce the concept which included a couple of videos such as this one by Chris Kesler.
The students were very excited about this, but of course now I have students that say they aren't sure they want to be in choir because they want to participate in Genius Hour!!  I told them the beauty of this is that they can still do this at home so if they want to be in choir, sign up for choir!
 
The rest of the week was spent in small groups and then the large group creating classroom expectations for the  year.  I told them I didn't want to call them rules because I wanted them to be worded in a positive way instead of everything starting with "No..."  I was very impressed with what some of groups came up with, but each group also has a set that is unique to them.  This year I truly want to make my classroom about my students and their needs.  My 7th graders even created a rotating schedule for who gets to sit on the yoga balls during class.  A small group of students then created the poster that will hang in the room.  This is one of the posters from my very artistic 8th grade.
 
 
Next week we will begin the week by setting individual goals for the trimester and then start getting into the curriculum as I introduce the different websites and apps we will be using this year such as Remind101, Kidblog and edmodo.  Still some things I need to iron out, like how I want to address our vocab curriculum for the year and make it more useful and engaging for my students.  Its time to get rolling!! 
 
 Here is one of my 8th grade summer movie trailers.
 




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