One down!

Well, my first quarter as a middle school teacher is in the books, and it feels good! I've definitely learned a lot over these past several weeks about the middle school lifestyle. I've learned how to balance the lifestyle of a new teacher all over again, trying to lesson plan for a new set of standards. I've also learned how to juggle grading for 75 kids rather than just 20 (that one took me longer to catch on to, but it did feel good to have all the grading for the quarter done and posted). And, of course, I've learned A LOT about my kids! Strengths and struggles, behavior tendencies, who doesn't work well with who, which students just need gentle reminders and which ones need a firm approach. Going into second quarter, I definitely know what techniques I want to repeat and which ones can be altered or dropped. Bring on the next nine weeks!

Both the 7th and 8th grade classes have switched gears a bit this week. While both grades are still in our geology units, we've moved on to new topics. The 7th graders have moved past our studies of changes to the Earth's surface through weathering, erosion, and deposition, and now we are talking about the layers of the Earth to then transition into plate tectonics. I've always enjoyed geology, but it wasn't really one that we studied a lot in 3rd grade. So, I'm looking forward to guiding the students through this new piece of learning for both of us. The 8th graders, on the other hand, have transitioned into fossils.  But we will be taking what we've learned about rocks with us. This week we have started learning about relative dating (and I joke with the students that it isn't what they think it is when they first hear about it...) Relative dating is the process used for determining the relative age of rock formations in comparison with the other rocks around them. We made models of the layering that occurs with sedimentary rocks using graduated cylinders and various "sediment samples" (different colors of fish tank rocks), followed by applying this relative dating process to the layers of rocks that can be found in Wisconsin. I'm really looking forward to the lesson that will start out the classes for next week--we are going to take what we've learned about the relative aging process and try to sequence a set of mystery sediment samples with "fossils" in them. The students will need to uncover the fossil samples (which are animal crackers) and match them up with sediment layers in other cups with similar fossils in order to sequence the cups. I'm really excited to see if the students can apply what we've learned about the relative dating process with this one!

Mindfulness thought for the week: Identifying a weakness is a strength.
Shout-out to Tom J Deters and the ProYou Podcast for another mindful thought for my students!

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