This year I wanted to not only decorate my room but work on organization as well. Usually I am surrounded by a mountain of papers, supplies are in several different areas and when I get overwhelmed I start stuffing the file cabinet full. Then I have to buy more supplies because I can’t find anything.
students who are not proficient in English, I have the words displayed in both English and Spanish and either a word definition or a picture illustrating the word or phrase. I had well over 100 words or phrases, but left space in case I had overlooked something. I am already making some scavenger type activities for students to complete using the definitions on the word wall.
The first one is the post-it activity that I have blogged about before. This year I asked the students to give me their definition of success, what they need to do in order to be successful and what I need to do to help them be successful.Of course, I worded the third one badly. 
It begged for an inappropriate comment, or two. I got them. Even though I explained to students that I meant this to mean what I needed to do to help them be successful in class every day, they still gave me some odd answers. I expected it, and I wasn’t disappointed. Some of the answers were “twerk”, “play pokeman” “never assign any work” “watch movies” “sleep” “bring donuts”……
This year I wanted to not only decorate my room but work on organization as well. Usually I am surrounded by a mountain of papers, supplies are in several different areas and when I get overwhelmed I start stuffing the file cabinet full. Then I have to buy more supplies because I can’t find anything.
students who are not proficient in English, I have the words displayed in both English and Spanish and either a word definition or a picture illustrating the word or phrase. I had well over 100 words or phrases, but left space in case I had overlooked something. I am already making some scavenger type activities for students to complete using the definitions on the word wall.
The first one is the post-it activity that I have blogged about before. This year I asked the students to give me their definition of success, what they need to do in order to be successful and what I need to do to help them be successful.Of course, I worded the third one badly. 
It begged for an inappropriate comment, or two. I got them. Even though I explained to students that I meant this to mean what I needed to do to help them be successful in class every day, they still gave me some odd answers. I expected it, and I wasn’t disappointed. Some of the answers were “twerk”, “play pokeman” “never assign any work” “watch movies” “sleep” “bring donuts”……
Back to school night was on the Thursday night before the first day of school on Friday–It was a long night. I had worked all day in over 100 degree heat in my room, trying to fix it up and then went to dinner and came back to greet parents and students.
Students have already been telling me (repeatedly 4-5 times each day) when their birthday is so they can see their name. I also made a poster so parents could easily contact me. In addition to scanning the information, I made small postcards and provided a remind code for class messages, school messages and reminders about quizzes and tests.
A lot of responses were to “smile”. I am smiling all the time, I am a happy person, I smile constantly. I think I even smile in my sleep, I know I wake up smiling. But I smile with my lips and don’t show teeth, so students do not consider that smiling. Interesting…..
Another activity we did was to tweet about the first day of school, Middle School, 8th grade and Math. I let students post their tweets so we could remember our first day. They enjoyed tweeting so much that I will use this again, as an exit ticket or to check our progress throughout the year.
Ok, so when I am not planning lessons or making activities for my TPT store, I am at the movies. I have to admit I am a sucker for movie displays and always need to get my photo taken. I thought this one was very appropriate for the school teacher….
Everything looks great! Good luck for this coming school year!