Sub Plan Update

Well, Wednesday has come and gone.  I promised an update on my sub plan question, so here goes.  First, I got a sub the students like, who also likes them.  That was a pretty good start.  The day before I was going to be gone I typed my sub plans in a large font and [...]

Sub Plans – What about them?

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about sub plans, the making of them and their delivery or not.  Way back in earlier times, before NCLB and benchmark exams, when I had to have a sub I would often leave a movie that somehow pertained to what we had been studying.  I’d make a graphic organizer [...]

Organizing Twelve-year-olds

I know, it sounds like an oxymoron.  And it kind of is, but I’m always looking for ways to help my students be organized enough to get the work they actually do handed in so they may receive credit for having done it.  We do almost all of our work in class.  I rarely (okay [...]

A New Semester: a Fresh Start?

Once again, the second semester has rolled around.  We’re back from vacation, fresh and ready to go.  Still slightly in vacation season, but definitely on the downhill roll to the next big test.  Tests, actually.  I just printed out our district’s Quarter 3 Benchmark assessment for seventh grade and discovered that it is 29 pages [...]

Happy New Year from Ms. Mushroom

Well, now that 2011 is water under the bridge (or over the dam, however you prefer to interpret this bit of visual imagery) I think it’s a good time for some reflection before I dive into the rest of the school year.  We still have another week of vacation (lucky ducks!!), but I decided to [...]

Hello? Is anyone there?

No?  Oh, right, it’s Christmas Winter Vacation and everyone’s gone home.  Thank goodness for that.  I really needed a chance to do a little review and revamp.  Actually, it seems we will be doing a major revamp in the ELD classes.  Here’s the deal: Our district, and our school, in particular, are going to be [...]

Middle to High school: It’s a continuum, not a restart.

When I first started teaching middle school, I somehow thought I’d have all new students.  From all new families, that is, even though the middle school is just across the highway from the high school.  As if the younger kids would come from a different pool than the older ones I’d known and loved for [...]

The first quarter is over already??

Wait, the first quarter just ended?  But, it feels like we’re barely beginning!  What have we done so far?  It feels like we are so far behind where we usually are at this time of year.  Let’s see… We started the year off with gigantic classes, and that lasted for two weeks so very little [...]

Multiple Intelligences?

Oh my, what a week. Let me tell you about it, and then I’ll tell you what I’m thinking…it’s sort of a new path of thought for me. Yesterday I was doing a story vocab lesson on a PowerPoint with my Intermediate English Learners. The room was a little darker than usual, and a few [...]

On the Importance of Watering the Grass

Sometimes life has a way of getting you down, and sometimes it creeps up on you so you don’t even notice it until it’s almost too late to pull out. Like this summer, when you were distracted by some hard stuff, and let a lot of things go. Your house kind of built itself into [...]

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