Classroom Management

Happy Sunday!

Today I am coming at you with a post I have been writing for a long time. I write a little, get ready to publish and then feel self conscious and revert it to a draft again. Today, I am getting brave and publishing with the caveat that I have so much work to do on classroom management. There is a huge gap between things I know I should be doing and things I actually do. If you come in my room for five seconds you could probably spot several things I am not doing perfectly or even at all, but I am constantly reflecting and trying to improve, and I think that is all that matters. 

I want to start with the best education advice I have ever received. "Any day can be another first day of school." Meaning do not be afraid to put on the brakes and start over. If you want to incorporate anything on this list, or even anything you find on any other site, just do it! Don't ever write off a year completely. Is it easier to do at the first of the year? Absolutely. However if you are miserable (been there) then it's worth a shot!

1. Keep your power

The worst mistake I made my first year teaching was giving the students the power in my classroom. I would say things like, "If you let me get through a thirty minute lesson, I will give you the last ten minutes of class to do what you want." This was totally giving the power to the students, making them in charge in my classroom. Their behavior is not something to be bargained with. I felt like every day I was pleading with them to learn something. I wish I would have had more of a, "this is school and we learn here" type of mentality. Have confidence that you are the adult and that they can't argue or bargain with you.

2. Have serious conversations 

You cannot be afraid to correct a student's behavior or pull them out in the hall to talk. My first year I was so scared of this very thing. I didn't want students to feel bad or embarrassed, so I would let bad behavior carry on instead of correcting it the second it happened. Last year I was much better at this, but as soon as a student was doing an incorrect behavior, I would address it right then. Sometimes that meant calling them out in front of everyone, or coming to their side and whispering, or pulling them out in the hall. Your life will vastly improve if you just buck up and have a tough conversation right when you need to. Just this week I had to pull a kid out in the hall to have a really tough chat about his behavior. Before I went back in I assured him that I loved him and I don't think he's a bad kid at all. Kids are more resilient and used to these types of conversations than we realize, so talk with them and then tell them you love them and go back in your room smiling!

3. Know procedures vs rules

A lot of the things I'm strict on in my rules are procedures, not rules. For example, having appropriate language is a rule, whereas what to do when you don't have a pencil is a procedure. After you break down your rules v procedures, you will realize you have way more procedures than rules. The good news about that is procedures are way easier to perfect than rules. If your procedures are tight, that is 90% of the battle. 

4. Review, practice, review, practice

Speaking of procedures, these need to be practiced like you are training for a marathon. The first week of school, my students and I practice everything. Even simple things like passing papers down the rows, we practice over and over. We practice coming into the room. We role play getting tissues, forgetting a pencil. We practice cleaning up for the day. We practice getting into groups. We. Practice. Everything. When we are off for a break, we come back and I review the procedures and we practice again. This takes five minutes every so often but it pays off greatly.

5. Focus on positive incentives, not negative consequences

This year was my last year of posting consequences. Next year, I will start focusing more on positive reinforcements. When a student comes in my room and gets started right away, I give them a blue raffle ticket. They put them in a big bucket and on Fridays during the first two minutes of class I play the Chariots of Fire or Eye of the Tiger song and draw ten winners for ten pieces of candy. It's silly but they love it! 

My current school has "pride cards" and my last school had "Golden Tickets" but basically these are traded in for bigger prizes. When you give these out, recognize the student in front of the whole class instead of doing it in private. I also do a student of the week board with a student for each of my classes. It's important to recognize this student with why they are student of the week so that students know what they are achieving. Positivity goes so much further than negative consequences like lunch detentions, etc. 

6. Start off strong and strict

Ah, the first month of school. What a different person I am. How much I enjoy the roll around of October when I can finally start loosening up. However, it's so worth it. I can't even describe how worth it starting strict actually is. Correct every behavior. Mean business. It's loads easier to start off strict and get more lenient than the other way around. If it isn't you natural personality (it's definitely not mine, I have to force myself!!) fake it till you make it!

7. Get parents involved

The best thing I ever did was start sending out weekly emails to my parents with news and upcoming due dates. I found this cut down on the angry emails and opened a communication portal so that if a student needed parental intervention, I have already been in contact. I also contact parents frequently to come in for meetings about their student, especially if their student has consistent behavior issues. I have several students this year who weren't doing anything completely against the rules, just being disrespectful in general. We had a great conversations every time and the behavior of the student improved. Communication is key, not a cliche for nothing!

8. Stay consistent

You cannot slack off on your rules/expectations. If you say you are going to expect something, then that has to stay as your expectation always. I don't allow soda in my room, but one time I decided not to tell a student to put away a soda. Then, a week later, I told another student to put his soda away and the time I let it slack came back to haunt me. If a student doesn't have to guess what your rules are and when you're going to enforce them, your life will be so much easier.

9. Be prepared + ready 

The more prepared you are, the better your day will run. If I greet the students at the door and then am standing at the front of the room when the bell rings, class is smoother. Even things like getting my room totally set up before the first day of school matters. I just re-arranged my room and it totally screwed up my kids, it's been a rough week and honestly I think that is why. If you're ready to tackle the day/class period, it gives students the signal that they should be too.

10. Give love

Above all, be loving to each student no matter how hard it is. Without going into too many details for privacy's sake, last year I had a student go missing for two days because of a conversation we had about him needing to work harder (it was a gifted class). I wasn't very loving in that conversation. It really made me realize that I may only have a 10 second one on one interaction with a student as they walk in the door, but that one interaction needs to be very loving and happy that they are there.

Okay, I hope those are helpful and not totally obvious and like, "well, duh!!!!" 

These are the things that have helped me the most, so I hope they help your classroom too! 

Civl War Battles Simulation

Long time no blog!

We finished Mock Trial about a month ago, which is why I wasn't blogging, and then we had spring break, state testing, etc etc etc and anyway, I'm just sitting down to blog all the fun lessons we have been working on!

We only have FOUR weeks left of school. It's pretty crazy and kind of stressful! I have a lot to cover still and not a lot of time, but we will make it work!

So, I'll be straight with you when I say that Civil War is not my favorite thing to cover, only because I feel like it's very battle heavy. I don't really focus on the battles with the American Revolution, just the ideas, themes etc. With Civil War, I feel like a lot more students are interested in the battles because they have been to battlefields or heard about Generals, so I feel more pressure to cover the battles more in depth than I normally would. 

The problem is, I have never found a way to do battles that isn't Powerpoint/lecture format, which I hate.

So I turned to my trusty TPT! I looked for battle simulations and found one that had good ratings. Only problem, it was $8. That is a lot, in my opinion.  However, it had good reviews so I took the risk! I had some precious TPT credits I had been saving and I bought the simulation.

Oh man, you guys. This was the worst TPT product I have ever purchased. It was a disorganized mess! I have never seen anything so bad. It was just several very confusing documents. The seller had a key that didn't match the student copy and it also had a lot of wrong information. I was so disappointed, but I realized I could spend a significant amount of time using the same basic idea of  a simulation and create my own.

So, here is the idea. I split my class into two, Confederacy and Union. Then within the bigger groups, I created four smaller groups with 4 students per group. Each of those smaller groups was a regiment. I gave them the description and pictures of their regiment and they had to introduce themselves to the class. So we had regiments like The Iron Brigade, the 54th, Irish Brigade, Stonewall Brigade, etc.

The idea of the game is I read what has brought students to a particular battle, then students are presented with a choice. Every choice they make has positive or negative point value.  Then I read what actually happened and show students a video, then I give them the point breakdown of what they earned based on their decision. The goal is to get the most points. Even though the Union won the war, they aren't guaranteed to win the game.

My students have had SO much fun with this game and they are so much more likely to remember why each battle/general was important. I'm so glad I finally figured out how to teach battles in a way that I love.

If you would like the game for yourself, you can buy it from my Teachers Pay Teachers store here.

Hope you enjoy it as much as my students! If you have any questions about the details, email me at beggingborrowingstealing@gmail.com

Intro to the Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution is my favorite unit to teach! I love everything I do during this unit. Just last year I added this activity as an intro to the Industrial Revolution. I heard about it from another teacher at my school and I was intrigued so I did it last year. My students reacted just as the teacher said they would last year and again this year. It was perfect!

Students come in and I hand them a coloring sheet. I tell them we are going to relax and take a brain break and color for the first 10-15 minutes. The students who know me better are always a little skeptical..."she's tricking us into learning!!!!" haha! However I maintain my innocence and the students eventually relax.

Then I tell them we are going to play a coloring game. I split the students up into groups and assign each student one color. They are in charge of their color only on the color by number sheet. When they are done or when I say switch, they switch with someone in their group. I tell them the group with the most completed coloring sheets in the fastest time gets a piece of candy, but that never happens! :) As they start to color I start out calm and slowly tell them to switch faster and faster. I also "yell" at students to go faster and if they color outside the lines I "fire" them and rip up their coloring sheet! I also add new coloring sheets in as they are frantically trying to color.

Without fail, students absolutely freak out. They are so stressed and have no idea what is going on.

After about five minutes of the second coloring activity I stop and explain life Pre-Industrail Revolution. Most people worked on small farms making everything by hand or from a small shop. Things were really quality, but expensive and took a lot of time. People didn't have much and life wasn't great.

Then I talk about the factory system and how it changed life as we know it! It made things cheaper so people could afford more, created a middle class, etc. but it also had some drawbacks.

Students love this analogy and they love being in on "the secret" of the coloring activity until I can get through all of my classes.  

It's a great ice-breaker for the Industrial Revolution! 

Lewis and Clark Twitter Assignment

Last year, I did a Lewis and Clark newspaper assignment. I thought I liked it and intended to do it again this year, but when I got it out to make copies I didn't think it met the goals of my unit. So I had to scrap it and come up with something FAST. 

I love social media and I haven't utilized it at all this year in any lesson. When I taught World Civ, they created instagram pages for an Egyptian God/Goddess. However since I made the switch to U.S History, I haven't. So the Lewis and Clark Twitter Assignment was born.

I brought elements together from many lessons I found online until I found something that worked for my classroom.  The main aspect of the assignment I got here, from Room115's TPT shop. It was a little expensive for what you get, which I left in the feedback. 

The next thing was to find a Twitter template. I looked high and low and couldn't find anything I liked. This was the closest from Alli Brigg's TPT shop. I ended up downloading it and students edited it on Google Slides. I deleted some parts like "Trends" and "Photos and Videos". We just didn't have time to do that part, but it could be cool to incorporate next year.

Students were able to zoom in and edit right on slides and it was fairly easy, only after I explained what Twitter was. It was pretty surprising how many of my 13 year olds didn't know what Twitter was! 

It ended up being a great project, despite the parent who told me it was an inappropriate assignment... (??) Gotta love feedback!

Here's an example of a student that got full points!

The students loved this project and kept sharing their hashtags and tweets, so there was a ton of laughter! 

Happy tweeting! 

Lewis and Clark Board Game

Hello, friends! Long time no blog! I coach Mock Trial and we are smack dab in the middle of our season, so I have had no life! It's fun and I love our team, but it sure does take over. However, I'm back and ready to share some awesome resources.

I'm compiling a blog post about being paperless in my classroom, let me know if you have questions!

We just wrapped up our Lewis and Clark unit. I was a day ahead of the rest of our history department so I needed an extra activity to slow us down. This board game was perfect! It's a free download from  Relentlessly Fun Deceptively Educational. I can't imagine the work that went into it. The few things I added were a spinner instead of dice, this made the game go a little longer and each student get more info. I also cut out small circles with my Cricut for game pieces. The last change I made was students had to write down a summary of each card in their notebooks. This helped when all students wanted to do was read the last step of each card and not get any historical information. As I say, "THIS IS SCHOOL, PEOPLE!" 

The kids love, love, LOVE when we play board games. We played an awesome one for the French and Indian War that the students still remember. I find it's a good way to wrap up a unit.

Head over to the Deceptively Educational blog to download Westward Bound for your class!

Thanks to my three student aides who cut everything out and laminated all of it! They were champs.

Bill of Rights Children's Book

I was trying to think of a fun way to teach the Bill of Rights, together my PLC came up with students making a children's book that explained each amendment! The students loved this activity as they love everything creative and it helped them cement the amendments in their brain a little more. The instructions were simply to make a children's book that included each amendment in the Bill of Rights with elementary student friendly language explaining what each amendment means as well as a picture. They all turned out really well! We took twenty minutes to have "story time" where everyone had a chance to read their book to their group. They had a blast.

Although this activity was fun, I have plans for next year involving a Bill of Rights board game that students would create....stay tuned. :) 

Women of the American Revolution Activity

This was a new activity that I came up with this year. That's right! No begging, borrowing, or stealing. It just came from I just get really sad that we don't get to teach WW2 in our school. That is saved for the high schools. So I have gotten clever about how to weave it in. In this lesson, I start talking about Rosie the Riveter and do a little mini lesson about her and her role in WW2. You can see the slideshow I used here.

So we talk about Rosie the Riveter and what she did.  Then students do a gallery walk with bios from different women from the Revolutionary war. These women are Deborah Sampson, Nancy Hart, Mary Katherine Goddard, Esther Reed, Lydia Darran, Sybil Ludington, and Margaret Cochran Corbin.  They have to write down the women's names and what they did for the war.

The last task they have is to draw a poster demonstrating what their chosen woman did in the war. They have to "show the action" and create some sort of catchphrase to convince other women to also join the war effort.

This was a great activity and the students loved all of it from start to finish. They eat anything about WW2 up since they don't get it very often. They loved getting out of their seats for the gallery walk and drawing/art always engages the students I can't reach. The best part is that this fits perfectly in an hour long block!


Go women!

Women's Suffrage Graphic Novel

I tend to be a little vocal about my feminism in my classroom. My students see my "Women Belong in the House and the Senate" shirt very often. So it's no surprise to them that one of my favorite lessons of the entire year is about women's suffrage. I love to teach them about Susan B Anthony, Seneca Falls, the hunger strike in jail, all of it! My favorite video of the year is this really well made video to the tune of Bad Romance, a Lady Gaga song.

I found this lesson on Teachers Pay Teachers and it is one of my favorite finds from that website. It is a lesson that "History with Mr. E" created and it's amazing, worth $5.00 and then some!

It starts with a great primary source activity that introduces key concepts from the struggle for suffrage. I put students in groups and they analyze the source using questions that are provided in the lesson. Afterwards we discuss the sources as a class and I give background. The students are usually so entranced that I don't make them take notes. We watch a few videos, one from the clip above, another from the Suffragette movie that recently came out. Then they are give the second part of the lesson, the graphic novel.

Students are required to create a graphic novel that tells the story of how women came to get the vote through the major events that were discussed in the primary sources. Students LOVE this activity because it allows them to be creative. One student did the whole story with bees being the women "Susan BEE Anthony" and ants being the men. It was amazing. It really makes the whole journey solidify in their minds.

I would highly recommend this engaging lesson using primary sources to educate your students about women and the right to vote! Thanks to Mr. E for letting me steal this lesson. You can purchase it here.

Preamble to the Constitution Activity

Ohhh, teaching government. I have such a love/hate relationship with teaching government. I have some fun simulations but I also have some days that are a little painful for both me and the students.

Last year I really messed up the preamble. It was a painful train wreck of a lesson. So this year, I set out to figure something else out. 

While searching around online for different lesson ideas, I often find lessons that are half complete or don't totally make sense and I have to piece them together using parts of what I found and the rest of it comes from my imagination. It's actually kind of fun! 

I start with a small group simulation where they are stranded on a desert island and they have some problems they need to solve (all relating to parts of the Preamble, they figure this out later). You can check out the simulation [for free!] here.

After we have a discussion about the problems that the colonists had after the revolutionary war, the preamble is introduced. Then the poster project is introduced.

In groups, the students have to brainstorm three ways our government is currently upholding a specific part of the preamble. Students were a lot more creative with this than I thought they would be! A popular topic was Obamacare for "promote the general welfare." Then students create a poster explaining those three issues, writing a letter to the current president from a founding father giving him advice about how to work towards their assigned part of the preamble. They also have to assemble hashtags that relate to their part of the preamble. 

At the end, we will do a gallery walk where students walk around and note the different issues related to the preamble. 

It was a pretty quick little lesson! It took my kids two class periods (two hours) to do the poster and the gallery walk.

Find the activity worksheet [for free!] here.

Thanks for letting me steal, random teacher on the internet! Unfortunately I didn't save the website because it didn't have a ton of information on it, a lot of it I had to piece together myself.