0 My Vacation

I am dancing around the idea of changing the theme of my blog to more than just teaching. I'll start by sharing a day in the exciting life of a teacher on mid-winter vacation. It's Sunday night and I'm procrastinating making my lesson for tomorrow morning....grades might be due this week...I'll deal with that tomorrow. I didn't even so much as look at my school bag over vacation! Should I feel guilty? I kind of do- however- it's supposed to be vacation, right? Which means no work. I did however do some work in the kitchen. I started out my vacation by a lovely, three hour drive to Olean, which is always fun. And for those of you who think there's...

0 My new job should be motivational speaking

I set out to create a Prezi (presentation tool) about goal setting for my students because we had this speaker come to our school yesterday, and one of the things she said is that our students literally don't know how to set a goal and achieve it (which is true). It kind of turned into more or less a rant about students making excuses for not doing work. I'm sick of complaining about students being 'lazy' and not doing work. I'm sick of looking at all the zeroes in my grade book and sighing. I'm sick of coming off as mean to my students when I lecture them about turning in homework. If I'm just complaining and making excuses without at least...

0 Types of Love Jigsaw

  In order to introduce Romeo and Juliet, I wanted to go with a love theme and have students explore different types of love. I designed this lesson when I was down and out after tonsil surgery. My 9th grade classes were put into groups of 5. Each group was given an article on a different type (or counterfeit) of love. Their job was to read the article, make a poster that taught the class what their type of love was, and teach it to the class. Some of the articles can be found here:  http://lifeteen.com/5-counterfeits-of-love-and-why-people-accept-them-part-i-lust/   Here are some student posters:   I don't...

0 Reward Point System for Motivation

Lack of motivation and effort is an ongoing issue in my classroom. Students have no intrinsic motivation to do well- sometimes it seems like they simply don't care. This is due to a combination of social and cultural factors. I have been trying to combat this problem with lessons that have a lot of transitions, material and lessons that interest students, and something new I just introduced which is the points- rewards system. Students have to earn a check by exhibiting good behavior and in turn can redeem these points for rewards. Students have to receive a check in all four categories to receive any points for the day. They can receive 2 points...