Re: end-of-the-year catch-up

["dayle biba" <cowgirlnc@earthlink.net>]

Hi
This was my first year teaching, and I THOUGHT I would never survive. From
August until December break----I would cry on the way to school, and cry on
the way home, at least 3 times a week. I was certifield high school, but
only got offered a job in Middle School. I learned several things about
teaching 7th and 8th graders. The seventh graders are talkers, and
touchers, constantly had their hands on someone, and the 8th graders lorded
their vast knowledge to anyone, with out regard to respect or
appropriateness. 
I found penpals in China and Turkey for them to correspond with through
snail mail. I would mail out 80-100 letters with pics, CD's with pics of
our area, flags, and stuffed animals that the kids wanted to send. The
other countries woud respond in kind. The kids learned that their life
restrictions were nothing compared to what their Chinese and Turkish peers
had to endure. China has a devastating sicknees that was causing hundreds
of death, and Turkey was facing bombs being dropped in their area, and war.
The kids were albe to explore different cultures in realistic way. They
truly enjoyed this activity. I let them make our penpal bulletin board for
display in our room. We spend time discussing what a letter should make a
person feel like, what things in common they might find with each. Both
sides commonly picked different genders, but some chose to have both to
write to. Unfortunately the mail system costs about $16.60 to mail a
package, and it takes about two weeks to get to its
destinatioon.Teacher.net offers penpals, as do other web sites. It was an
excellent project for our school because we tied it into social studies via
my language arts classes. Some kids felt they had met life long friends,
and I sincerely hope so. 
After Christmas, I decide to use a Powerpoint presentation to play Who
Wants to be a Millioniare, and Jeopardy. I used these segments to teach
short stories, folktales, drama, and nonfiction. I supplied gold coins that
the winning teams could cash in for candy and prizes. I also used colorful
cards from Construction paper to write down vocabulary and literary terms
in which I pasted to the white board with the word on the inside of the
card. . The teaming would have to pick two cards and try to match the
words. If they could find a matching word, they had to give the definition
before the point could be awarded to their teacm. They had 60 seconds to
come up with a defintion. Winning teams cashed in their prizes for free
home work passes, errand runs, library time or computer time. This was
similiar to a game of Concentration. 
I used some of their songs to dissect and find alliteration, repetition,
similes, metaphors, meter, etc. I tried to show them that poetry is just
words without the music. 

I tried to make learning fun for them as much as possible, and still teach
the test.So every day wasnt fun and games, but it gave them something to
look forward to. 
After Christmas break, I cried less because I was busy trying to come up
with ideas that kept them motivated, and on task. I despise our accelerated
reading program becaause the kids say we dont have books that interest
them, or the books are old in the media center. I want kids to read what
they like, rather than bombing  a test on a book they didnt care to read in
the first place. I tried the book report or book project , and ran into as
much rampant cheating as the accelerated reading program created. 
I would love to have some ideas on accelerated reading program, some
thoughts, and musings. I also have some classroom management issues that
stilll dont work. I have tried routines but they follow through for a day
or two, and soon forget and go back to disruptive behavior. Any and all
suggestions would be appreciated.
Dayle Biba
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