Etch 'n Sketch Reflections

February is in the books! Now, I know this sounds obvious since it is a short month, but it flew by! To be perfectly honest though, I think the reason that it went so quickly was that this week (yes, the last week of the month) was the ONLY full week of school we had. Every other week had a day off due to weather or a scheduled in-service day. Crazy, right? What's even crazier is that there are only 3 weeks until the end of the quarter, followed by a week off for spring break (which will have us back to school April 1). I swear the end of the school year is going to be here before I know it! Now, I know I just got done talking about having the first full week of school for the month, but I am tired and ready for the weekend! There were some late nights this week with grading some projects and lesson planning for a new unit the 8th graders started. The 7th graders have been learning about genetics, and they had a project where they needed to develop a new Sesame Street character b...

It was a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world of screencasts last night! That many mads is how many screencasts I made last night :-) If you don't know what a screencast is, it is a narrated video of what is happening on your computer screen. Why did I make six screencasts last night, you ask? Well, this morning I had a substitute teacher for my 7th-grade class while I was in a curriculum meeting, and my students were starting a new project that had many steps to it. The project packet had the directions on it, but some things may have needed extra explanation that the substitute may have been unable to supply. So, I did the next best thing and recorded myself giving the explanations on a digital copy of the document. But why six screencasts? The project was divided up into six sections, and making one long video would probably leave the students saying, "That's too long so I won't bother!" By making six videos, the students are able to just watch the ones they need...

Whew! There have been a couple late nights this week (tonight included) working on lessons, and (once again) it wasn't even a full week of school! Last night ended up being a late night because I ended up calling an audible on my 7th-grade plans for today. The 7th graders were going to have a quiz today, but following one of the review activities that we did, I felt like there were a few areas that they could use some more work with and they weren't quite ready for the quiz. So, rather than simply having the students look over their notes for another day and play another review game, I thought about how we could engage with the information in a way that we hadn't before. That's when my 3rd-grade brain kicked in a little--I'd have them do a readers theater! So, with my fingers furiously typing last night, I knocked out a short readers theater. We tried it out today; I wasn't completely sure how they would react to it (although I had a strong feeling about what so...

It came unexpectedly, but today was another day off of school due to the weather. Freezing rain overnight led to difficult traveling conditions this morning and throughout the day...not that I would know, though, as I stayed put. So, the extra time gave me the opportunity to check some items off of the old to-do list along with some items to manage at home. This week has been a fun week at school! In 7th grade, the students have been learning about DNA and the process that goes into coding for amino acids and proteins. To help with understanding this, the students did a little decoding of a puzzle that required the students to use the bases of the DNA molecule. After learning about the decoding process, the students were then challenged with making puzzles of their own. The students worked in teams to create a puzzle message, code it, and then put the code into a DNA sequence. Today we were going to have a decoding challenge of the puzzles created, but the weather had other thoughts! ...

This was definitely an odd week! Due to the weather, we had off of school more than we were in school! Monday brought a lot of snow (I believe the measurements were around a foot), so that called for a snow day. It was such a sure thing that school was canceled already on Sunday. That time on Monday allowed me to catch up on some grading as well as get a quiz made for the 8th graders. I would like to say that Tuesday was business as usual, but there was an impending Polar Vortex that would be settling into our area on Tuesday night, so by lunchtime school had already been called off for yesterday and today. Needless to say, that definitely gave the students something else to think about other than what we had going on in class, but we made it work! I can't say they were too disappointed that the quiz scheduled for Wednesday was now postponed until tomorrow :-) Well, since I've had the last couple of days at home, that gave me more time to catch up on some things (although to b...

Talk about great timing! So, if you weren't aware, there was a lunar eclipse on Sunday night, and you'll never guess what I had planned to teach this week! That's right...chemistry! Just kidding :-) This week the 8th-grade students were learning about the lunar phases and solar/lunar eclipses. On Monday we learned about what the different phases are and how they happen, and Tuesday was spent learning about eclipses. On Wednesday we reviewed what we had learned, and then I introduced a short project the students would be creating. Our science standard states that the students should "Develop and use a model of the Earth-sun-moon system to describe the cyclic patterns of the lunar phases and eclipses," so the students were given the task of problem-solving with a flashlight and golf ball in order to create a model of the phases of the moon and eclipses. They needed to snap pictures of the lit golf ball from different perspectives to get the necessary phases and ecli...

I've made it to the halfway point of my first year of middle school, and I couldn't be happier! I have been very lucky (once again) to work with some outstanding people in my new position and having the opportunity to work in the new building! If you would have told me 10, 5, or even just a couple of years ago that I would be teaching middle school, I probably would have told you that you are crazy. But I am a believer in the idea that things are the way they are meant to be, and this is where I am meant to be! It has been an exciting, crazy, exhausting first semester feeling like a new teacher again, and I'm sure the second semester will feel the same way! But it will all be worth it, and I can't wait! The 7th graders had a busy and fun week! We spent the last few days designing and testing out air filters. The students were provided with some basic materials (pipe cleaners, cotton balls, cheesecloth, Kleenex, and tape) and were tasked with trying to filter out pepper...