Wow!! We have made it through the first week of the 7th grade already. I can not believe how fast the week has gone by. I am amazed at how eager my students seem to learn and how eager some of them are to jump right in, some of them are even willing to take leaps of faith and step out--putting themselves in harms way (figuratively speaking, of course) all for the sake of learning. It is very refreshing to see such eager young people with fresh minds just wanting to learn and be exposed to whatever it is that I have to share with them.
We spent most of Monday getting aquainted with one another, the rules and regulations, and the way that 7th grade works. There have been a few scheduling changes made this year so adjustments and learning had to take place for everyone, teachers included. Tuesday was down to business; I immediatley took the opportunity to assign my famous, "Mrs. Bradshaw: then and now" writing assignment which they embraced. Students immediatley dove right in and began bouncing thoughts and ideas off of one another and as usual began questioning me about my past in an attempt to write the best replica. I had students use a little thing called "bottoms up-heads together" that I learnied from my good friend and former professor Dr. Laurie Ramirez as a way to brain storm without causing too much class disruption. The students really liked the idea and the concept behind "bottoms up-heads together" and they could easily understand the reason for doing it this way. While they brainstormes they created their thinking maps to use as a guide to create their rough drafts which we used for peer editting. I explained the importance of critical peer editting to the students; I made it very clear that simply saying, "Nice paper" is not a critical review and that realistically they were not being a "True Friend" when they failed to point out the short comings in a writing piece of their partner. Mistakes are the blocks upon which we build; if no one points out our mistakes to us then how will we ever learn from them; if we are always told that everything we do is perfect then why should we ever think any different. I believe my point was driven home this week by Miley Cyress's little escapade. Her timing on that one could not have been anymore spot on, "Thanks Miley" for making a teachers life easy. After students completed their papers, as promised, I delivered the true version of my life which my students find fascinating.
Social Studies has been awesome as always. I just love social studies! This week we focused on maps, geography, and the five themes of geography. I wanted to be sure that my students had a firm grasp of the basics before I moved forward with the 'real stuff'. Today we looked at the food distribution all over the world, the amount of wheat production in the world, and the number of people that live on less than one dollar a day throughout the world. We also had a very indepth conversation about how the movement of people, goods, and ideas can affect a society, then we listed the reasons why we think people move from place to place. All of this was to get them thinking about the Age of Exploration and The Revolutionaries. I am super excited!!
One last thing and then I will close for today; all of my students have books that they are engaged in reading. Yay!! I have recommended books to several students based on their personal reading inventory. As I read through the remaining inventories I will be making recommendations for the remaining students.
We spent most of Monday getting aquainted with one another, the rules and regulations, and the way that 7th grade works. There have been a few scheduling changes made this year so adjustments and learning had to take place for everyone, teachers included. Tuesday was down to business; I immediatley took the opportunity to assign my famous, "Mrs. Bradshaw: then and now" writing assignment which they embraced. Students immediatley dove right in and began bouncing thoughts and ideas off of one another and as usual began questioning me about my past in an attempt to write the best replica. I had students use a little thing called "bottoms up-heads together" that I learnied from my good friend and former professor Dr. Laurie Ramirez as a way to brain storm without causing too much class disruption. The students really liked the idea and the concept behind "bottoms up-heads together" and they could easily understand the reason for doing it this way. While they brainstormes they created their thinking maps to use as a guide to create their rough drafts which we used for peer editting. I explained the importance of critical peer editting to the students; I made it very clear that simply saying, "Nice paper" is not a critical review and that realistically they were not being a "True Friend" when they failed to point out the short comings in a writing piece of their partner. Mistakes are the blocks upon which we build; if no one points out our mistakes to us then how will we ever learn from them; if we are always told that everything we do is perfect then why should we ever think any different. I believe my point was driven home this week by Miley Cyress's little escapade. Her timing on that one could not have been anymore spot on, "Thanks Miley" for making a teachers life easy. After students completed their papers, as promised, I delivered the true version of my life which my students find fascinating.
Social Studies has been awesome as always. I just love social studies! This week we focused on maps, geography, and the five themes of geography. I wanted to be sure that my students had a firm grasp of the basics before I moved forward with the 'real stuff'. Today we looked at the food distribution all over the world, the amount of wheat production in the world, and the number of people that live on less than one dollar a day throughout the world. We also had a very indepth conversation about how the movement of people, goods, and ideas can affect a society, then we listed the reasons why we think people move from place to place. All of this was to get them thinking about the Age of Exploration and The Revolutionaries. I am super excited!!
One last thing and then I will close for today; all of my students have books that they are engaged in reading. Yay!! I have recommended books to several students based on their personal reading inventory. As I read through the remaining inventories I will be making recommendations for the remaining students.