Top 4 Excellent Middle School Christmas Gifts From Students

Middle School kids are such an interesting mix of child and growing up.....and the ways that they try to express themselves are very touching and entertaining.  Where I work there is a very high poverty rate and I don't usually get (or expect) much in the way of Christmas gifts or end of the year gifts from students like suburban teachers get.  Here is my list this year.  I'll let you guess what my favorite is:

• a traditional Christmas card from a student who has been homeschooled until this year.
• A box of candy that had two 'layers' or 2 wrapped sections.  One was given to me, and one to another teacher.
• A thank you note that said "thank you for calling my mom. I was mad at you but that was just what I needed to get back on track and turn things around.  I'm doing so much better now"  I actually teared up a little!  
• A candy cane

Soaring Through Secondary Blog Hop

Soaring Through Secondary Middle and High School Blog Hop

I am excited to be participating in my first blog hop.  Thank you to the other bloggers who made the logo (liveteachcreate.com), and organized the blog hop (teachinghighschoolmath.blogspot.com).  Next in the hop, after me, is http://www.alessonplanforteachers.blogspot.com/.  To visit the next blog in this blog hop, click on the link at the bottom . 

I am trying a new strategy I am using this year in my classroom with a lot of success.  Many of my students (and perhaps yours too), struggle with 'academic' words that show up often in textbooks and test questions.  These may not be content words, specific to science, math, English, or Social Studies.  They are, however, academic language.  They are  not words that students use in everyday conversation, or probably hear at home, particularly if they are not from well-educated homes.  

These are called "Tier 2" vocabulary words.  They can also have different meanings in different contexts.  These are discussed well here http://www.superduperinc.com/handouts/pdf/182_VocabularyTiers.pdf and I also learned more about them in my ELL Professional Development, discussed here   

I am trying to spend more time explicitly teaching these words.  I am setting expectations for students to use these words in their writing and verbal responses.  One strategy I'm using is to make these words bellwork.  I am then using more traditional bellwork questions as a 'ticket out.'  Each day's bellwork includes a new word, context clues, pictures, or choices to figure out what it means, and use it in a sentence.  Then at the end of a week we have a matching quiz on the words.  Ideally my ticket out has the bellwork question in it!  Most of the time at the end of the week kids say something like "Oh!  These are the words we have been doing!!"  They are doing really well on the short mini-quizzes on these words, and their test scores and confidence reading test questions has gone way up.  I wrote about that when I started this strategy here 

As part of this blog hop, I am offering the following prize: 

                             

Inferring Vocabulary Set 1 or Inferring Vocabulary Set 2 

Leave a comment stating 

• your email address 

• how you would use this product in your classroom, or what strategies you use to teach your students these type of words.  

I will randomly choose a comment to receive either set of your choice free. 

Check out the next blog in our blog hop!!

                      

                                            http://www.alessonplanforteachers.blogspot.com/

How Can Technology Help You With Parent Contact?

How can I get my parents involved in the classroom?

Just like many other teachers, I'm sure, I am trying to raise test scores and achievement, increase homework completion, increase parent contacts, and meet my APPR goals this year.  I am testing out a tool to help increase parent involvement.  It is called Remind101.  I am going to start using it with my classes (students and parents) this week. I'll keep you posted.

I heard about it from a friend of mine who is using it and has great things to say. Remind 101 to message students and parents - free and safe.  The bottom line is that many (if not most) of our parents have cell phones, but may or may not have reliable internet and check/use email.  Text message are a great way to communicate with parents.  One of the best options out is there is Remind101.

Try out Remind101 to communicate with students and parents!

Here is the website Remind101.com

Here are a few teacher blogs that discuss it
http://misslwholebrainteaching.blogspot.com/2012/10/remind-101.html 

A great discussion of the set up and features  A few highlights:

• Your number and the parents' number stays private
• Both students and parents can subscribe to updates
• You can send out announcements to a large group, or to smaller groups, and can schedule ahead of time.
• They cannot reply to the messages (this could be a plus or a drawback).
• You can set up different groups for students and parents, or have them subscribe to the same updates. 

I think most kids want to be successful but are not in the habit of keeping track of multiple classes, doing homework, remembering what they need to do, etc.  Also, let's face it, our kids (and parents) are connected and used to technology.  While it may not always have a place in the classroom we need to connect with them where they are. 

Bloomz is another good option for parent communication

Another good options is Bloomz, however this does NOT send out only text reminders, but has an option for text, email, or smartphone app. This does allow two way messaging, and allows sending photos. It has more options, but also is a bit more complicated to set up. Remind is about as simple and straightforward as you can get!

Remind is free, anonymous, and very easy to set up. You can schedule messages to go out ahead of time.  I think its worth a try.

Anyone used either of these to communicate?  Did you see an increase in parent communication or parent involvement? Do you have feedback or suggestions?