Where did my PowerPoints gooooo?

For anyone who might be looking for my presentations, I am so sorry!  I have this on my list of things to do!  They will be back and available SOON.

I was really uncomfortable and worried that I was breaking copyright laws, so I pulled all of them (and I have at least 50 of them) off of TPT.  I am in the process of recreating them with blank rectangles holding the place where the SB page should go, which would allow any teachers who have adopted SB to simply upload a pdf of the page and insert it right into the presentation.  All the other parts of the presentation would still be included.

I am excited to get this done, and hopefully save teachers the HOURS of time it took me to create them. My goal is to have this done by the end of September.  Here is an example/cover slide of one that I pulled off.

Infographics Bonanza!

I'm trying out a new "thing" from one of my technology classes.  I need to find some infographics that I'd like to use in my classroom.  I have found LOTS of them on my favorite guilty pleasure Pinterest.  Thank goodness there are such skilled people out there!  Thought these would be good tips to remind the kiddos.





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Happy Summer!

Ahhhhh... Lake Tahoe...

It has been such a busy time since my last post... I apologize to any SpringBoard teachers who have been checking. I am super excited to get back into the blog as I have learned that 3 other schools in my district will be using SpringBoard this year. My hope is to offer some help and some peace! For being what some mistakenly call a "canned" curriculum, it really isn't.

So I can't tell you exactly what to do, just suggest some things that may allow you to breathe again. I highly recommend using the SpringBoard community on their website. It helped me so much the first year. But like everything, it can be quite time consuming. One thing I like is you can "subscribe" to certain topics/conversations and get email updates whenever someone posts.

My advice for you during the summer is this:

1. Familiarize yourself with the theme of your grade level (for example 7th grade is "Choices" - 8th grade is "Challenges"). Think about other books, movies, TV shows, cartoons, characters, etc. that might lend themselves to these themes.
2. Read the beginning of your teacher edition.
3. Look at the embedded assessments so you know what's coming.  I would recommend just reading the part that says "Assignment" on the first page of the Embedded Assessment directions; it's the most user friendly and clear.
4. Think about ways you can supplement so you will still get weekly grades in your grade book, because SB doesn't really have that.  So, maybe a grammar, vocabulary, skill sheet, reading log?
5. Don't plan too far in advance.  It's too hard to remember what you are supposed to teach for the current day if you get too far out!  Trust me, happened to me a lot!  I could tell you what we were doing in 2 weeks, but no clue for that day, because I had forgotten!
6. Gather the multi-media resources as well as "Suggested Texts and Materials" listed on the first page of each unit. (movie clips, magazine covers, etc.) Start files for stashing these things away.
7. Read whatever novel is assigned to the grade level you teach (Tangerine for 7th Grade, The Giver for 8th Grade).  Read it for enjoyment, but write a summary on the first page of each chapter about the main points, trust me it will help you later.  ** This might also be a good way to get some supplemental grades later when you are reading the novel... chapter quizzes? **

As a 3rd year SpringBoard teacher, I feel a lot less stressed heading into this school year. The first year is definitely the most challenging. I will post my back to school plans and pacing guide this week.

Please feel free to comment or ask questions!

3rd quarter... send up a flare!

3rd Quarter sure feels "festive," no?  Hope you felt that sarcasm... Holy cow.  3rd quarter is consistently the most exhausting quarter of the school year, and yet EVERY single year it sneaks up on me and presents itself as though it were a novel concept.

So I'm finally wrapping up my 2nd year of SpringBoard, which is to say, 2nd NEW year as I taught 7th grade last year and 8th grade this year.  I have to say, I always like what I'm teaching, but it is also exhausting.  But let me explain why I, personally, feel so exhausted with it.  I know that many of the other SpringBoard teachers out there have mixed feelings about it, many of which are negative.

I feel the stress of it because I'm supposed to teach at the same pace as my colleague who also teaches the same grade level.  Makes it hard to slow down or speed up to accommodate my own students as we need to be fairly close to each other (same day, same page kind of structure... yikes!)

I also feel the exhaustion of it because it is an official Pre-AP curriculum and we use it school wide.  Not all the kiddos ARE Pre-AP, so you can imagine how difficult it is for them.

However, I am happy to say that interim test scores do, in fact, keep going UP!!! So, there you go! Our state tests are in one more month... Fingers crossed!! C'mon 14 year olds, perform for me!! :-)

Kind of a blah blog today, but realized I had been so immersed in about 17 different technology classes and the 3rd quarter crawl that I hadn't updated in months... 

I created a PowerPoint to teach the methods of characterization.  I always use this and thought it was time to formally create something.  I had to go rogue and put SpringBoard on the back burner because, again, not all the students are PRE-AP and didn't necessarily retain the concept the first time they got it.  Check it out and see if your kids would benefit from it??  Here's a preview.  If it looks interesting, see my TPT store (Teachers Pay Teachers) - link on the side of the blog page.

Winter "Break"

Any teacher knows what the quotation marks around the word "break" indicate... that we really never, ever, ever take one. Maybe a few days were spent not thinking about school or working, but that's it!

I am feeling the back-to-school panic as I realize I am now looking at simply a regular week-end as far as time-off goes... I have done NOTHING that I had hoped to as far as my classroom goes.  Oh well, perhaps tomorrow!?

Think I will be starting some new things for the new year. I'm still married to SpringBoard, so I don't have a ton of flexibility, but there are so many cute and inspirational blogs out there, I feel inspired to sneak in some other stuff whenever I can.

I did acquire an iPad for Christmas, which is part of the reason why I haven't gotten as much done for school as I'd like.  I've been trying to figure out ways to make the iPad replace a lot of the heavy "stuff" I carry around.  Sometimes I wonder if the technology makes life easier or not? The learning curve certainly adds to the length of time it takes me to make a grocery list these days.  I'm sure I'll get the hang of it!

Well, enough procrastinating for tonight.  I should do something productive!

Embedded Assessment #1 - Day one million...

Okay, not really day 1,000,000, but kind of feels like that.  Again, please don't feel alone if you are not meeting the pacing (I don't think ANYONE worth standing up in front of children can!).

We are on day 4 of 5 which will really be day 4 of 7, but that's okay!  I am encouraged.  They are working hard and the quality appears to be there.  I will post some samples when I get them. Here are some screen shots of my ppt that I use to pace it out.  The teacher's guide doesn't really do this, so to keep my sanity, I DO!




Day 1 - Still on track!

Day 2 - Still reteaching "function strategy"

Day 3 - Oh yeah, we did NOT do this yet!

Day 4 will be trying to do day 3!

Day 5 will be hopefully doing this!?Click here to get whole ppt if you need it!

Needed to create something elementary!

Having taught middle school for the last 10 years, I needed to see something cute!  So I created 4 templates that I am DETERMINED to use in my own classroom (because secretly, middle schoolers are still into "cute").  I will use these PLUS my November Scholastic Book Order fun worksheet that I also created.  That will actually be perfect for the kids who finish their Embedded Assessment #1 before the others.  :-)

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Phew... needed a break.