6 weeks nears an end

This coming week will be my last week at Coble Middle School. I don't know where the time has gone. God has given me a great experience in the fact that I was able to teach both 7th and 8th grade at this school and have been able to see a night and day difference between the two. Even though 7th graders never stop talking and are always out of their seats, they are still awesome and I love that age. Since there is no school on Monday and all classes are testing on Friday, I only have 3 days with them this week and then I move on to Mary Lillard Intermediate to teach 6th graders. I am in the midst of planning my last lessons with them and I want them to be fun and something they remember.

Last week we talked about why people take risks. I showed them some videos to get them hooked to the lesson and even had one student tell me that she was really enjoying the lesson! That made me feel so good to know that my work had paid off for them. I always try to make it fun and give visuals to help with what we are learning. Here is one of the videos I showed them. We then read about a volcano chaser and how he risks his life to explore unknown parts of the world.

http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/2009/12/best-of-adventure/dean-potter-video

To assess students in this lesson, I had them write down 3 or 4 goals that they wanted to achieve in life. They could be risky like the ones we watched and read about, or they could be safer, like traveling to another country or learning a new language. I also encouraged a lot of them to think about what they may want to be when they grow up and what college they wanted to go to. They were then to share one of their goals with the class and tell us why it was important to them and how they were going to achieve that goal. Here are some of the goals that were shared:

Deep see diving
Skydiving
Attending college at Standford
Becoming a lawyer
Going on the game show, Wipeout
Traveling to Paris
Learning Spanish and traveling to Spain and Mexico
Get a scholarship to play football and then play in the NFL
Own a vacation home in Hawaii
Become prom queen
Be the valedictorian in high school
Become a makeup artist for celebrities

They all had very good goals and I think it really made them think about the next steps in their lives as they prepare for high school and what they need to do to achieve their goals. Overall, I was very impressed with their responses!

Still loving it!

I had a few rough days last week and this week but overall I'm still loving every minute of being at the school and with the kids. I've decided that 7th graders are really from another planet and they are just little busy bodies that NEVER STOP TALKING and I really don't think they can help it - lol!

I wanted to document a few things here that have really worked with the kids so I can use it later on and so that hopefully some of you can benefit from it too!

I used this video as my hook when teaching onomatopoeia in poetry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-BVwwKTjlI&feature=player_detailpage

I used these silly classified ads to teach informational text. In addition I pointed out how important it is for us to carefully edit our writing so we sound intelligent!
We also have been reading newspaper articles and magazine articles and exploring all the different ways we can get news delivered to us. I try to relate everything to them as much as possible because otherwise they zone right out! To assess them, I am having them work with a partner to create a classified ad or newspaper article. I will try to get some shots of their final projects and show you how they turned out. I have lots more to document but I really want to sleep!

~Mrs. Starkey

3 strike rule

I'm hoping that this blog will be a place to document what works and what doesn't work in a classroom full of middle school kiddos.

What worked Friday with the 7th graders -

I gave them the 3 strike rule. If they were quiet during writing time and could go through the entire class without getting three strikes, they would get the reward that I had brought for them that morning. I didn't tell them what it was but they were really excited about it and whispered for the 45 minutes I had them! It actually worked!!! I was super proud of myself and them. I also let them know that my teacher from UTA would be there Monday and that I really needed them to be on their best behavior so that she could see what a good class they were. I hope it goes well :)

First week of student teaching

All I can say is, wow! It flew by and I loved every minute of it! I was introduced to many teachers, the principal, and of course all my 7th and 8th graders. They seemed excited for me to be there and Mrs. Hegwood, my cooperating teacher, introduced me each period and they were all super nice to me. She wanted me to observe all week since this is my first time teaching so I helped out with grading and taking attendance and learned from her teaching style. She is very laid back and the students respect her. I took the liberty of asking her if I could lead a few classes yesterday and she said I could jump right in whenever I felt ready. So the plan is to teach one or two classes a day next week and build up to teaching 2 full weeks while I'm at the school. One of those weeks I will be doing a unit on poetry with the 7th graders and I'm really excited about it. I'm going to make it fun and creative because I know some kids dread poetry because of prior experience with it. I'll post more about that later.

Here is some awesome encouragement I got from the Lord last Tuesday morning! He is so good!