Upcoming Sale!!

In case you didn't hear -- Teachers Pay Teachers is having a giant site-wide sale Thursday and Friday February 27th and 28th.  Everything in my store, and many things site-wide will be up to 28% off!

Get your wishlists ready, and plan ahead. This is your chance to make the upcoming stretch of the school year easier on yourself.

Click on the banner above to go directly to my store.

Teaching with Poverty in Mind Chapter 3

I have shared my previous book circle discussions for Chapter 1 and 2.  Here is my discussion for Chapter 3.

As the book progresses, it gets more specific on suggestions that teachers can implement, or schools as a whole can implement to improve success rates for students.

This chapter was about IQ being fluid, rather than static, which is dramatic if you really think about it.  It also talked about other factors that are critical such as self-discipline, and teaching problem-solving skills and social interaction skills.

I went to a PD recently that dove-tailed with this.  It was actually on classroom management, but the presenter touched on research by John Hattie, as well.  If you have never heard of John Hattie (as I haven't), he is an educational research who did a meta-analysis of thousands of other research studies to look into what practices actually have a positive effect on student achievement.

He found that some of the most important factors are feedback, and student-teacher relationships (rather than many of the other things of which we constantly hear discussion.

If you are interested in more details on his research, look at this link  or simply google John Hattie or Visible Learning.

New Secondary Resource to Share With You

I wanted to share a resource with you!  I am honored to be part of a group of secondary teachers who are creating a group collaborative blog on a variety of secondary topics.

There will be daily (or almost daily) topical posts.  Most will be education related.  There will be monthly themes, such as formative assessment, technology, etc.

I hope you will stop in and check it out! I think you'll like what you find!

Earth Science of the Olympics Freebie

Another Freebie!! 
Similar to last week, but that one was a big success, so hopefully some people will enjoy this.
Last week I posted a "Science of Football and Olympics" in honor of the Superbowl.  It was focused on biology and life science topics.  
Here is one for this week focused on the Olympics, but focused more on Earth Science topics.  I hope you enjoy!  This is a great way to work in Common Core, relevancy, and grab students' interest
Science of the Olympics Hope you are having fun watching the Olympics.
And I promise some posts of more substance coming soon....some things are in the works here! 

Science of the Olympics and Football Freebie

I am trying to link up more frequently with Charity Preston's "Manic Monday" which is a huge resource of K-12 free resources.

I want to share with you some of the small things that I'm doing in my classroom.

This week we had a lot of state testing, and I needed something to "fill" at a time when kids were finishing, but some kids were absent.

I created this "Science of the Olympics and Football." Kids loved it!  Mine is focused on life science, but it could easily be modified for a different class.

The activity could also be given for homework or extra credit, and is very timely right now.

It is based on this resource from NBC.

Also, it is a great common core connection.  The videos have transcripts, if you want students to be able to read the transcript.  Text does not have to be only written text in a book.  This is another great tool to build in relevancy, and text analysis skills.

Get This Valuable Exit Ticket 4-Pack Free

Two sources of freebies for you!   1)  Here is a freebie of a few exit tickets. I am working on a product with a much greater selection of exit tickets, but in the meantime here is a freebie, with four exit tickets.  They are set to print four to a page.  Here is the link.  Enjoy!  

Facebook Free-For-All  Lots of Freebies for All Grade Levels.  Only through tomorrow. 

Teaching with Poverty in Mind Chapter 2

If you would like to read my second chapter journal entry, it is available at this link https://www.dropbox.com/s/ho5u8wgtbt8af2g/journal2.pdf

The second chapter got much more in depth about how a student's brain is affected by poverty, and specifically their behavior and emotional responses. We had a great discussion at my school after reading this chapter. 

Some of the most striking discussions, to me, were about how behavior and emotional responses are learned, and how our role as teachers, even high school level content teachers, is to help teach those emotional and behavioral responses. 

In addition, we discussed how many students come with emotional baggage, and part of our job, in order to make them successful, is to help build up their emotional 'bank account.'  We can do this through building relationships. 

This is a very very short reflection and summary on the second chapter. The second chapter can be seen at the same link that the first chapter was available (see previous post). 

I'd love to hear specific strategies that you use to teach problem solving and to build up emotional responses and teach behaviors, particularly in a high school setting. I think, as high school teachers, we don't do as much of this as elementary teachers do, but it's still important. 

The school culture makes a huge difference, but we as individual teachers can change the climate within our classrooms, and can play a role in the overall school climate.