Monday, November 17, 2008

College Football Fun

2 comments:

Erika said...

Sorry I am so slow in responding. I'm sure you would know better than anyone how crazy a single day of teaching can be.

I wish I had great words of advice on motivating students, but I still have a lot to learn in this area as well. One thing I do is talk about college ALL THE TIME. I always phrase things in "when and not "if" you go to college. I hear them reminding each other (because they've heard me say it so much)that the only time they can eat in the classroom is when they have graduated from college. When I was getting my master's degree, I would always talk about the homework that I was doing that night, or how I had class that evening. They loved that I brought a backpack to school just like they do. One day I just took some time to tell them about living in dorms, being able to choose what you want to learn about and what time you want to go to those classes. I made it sound like going to college was better than Disneyland.

Another thing that I have found very effective is helping them set goals for the school year. I teach 4th and 5th grade reading this year, so each student knows they need to improve by 50 WPM by the end of the year. We track it on a poster on the wall. They get so excited to see their "boot move up the mountain" as they increase their reading fluency. They also have "goal folders" where they can keep track of monthly fluency progress as well as chart their mastery of language arts standards.

These are just some things that seem to help my students. Please pass along any tricks that you have, too. Good luck with everything!

Ainsley said...

oh how much i love you. your little girl is such a doll....and you get another one- so NOT fair!

i can't believe you are in texas! i can' believe that you have a blog all this time and i didn't know about it....oh your life looks so happy.

i will make sure jenny invites you to her blog :)