Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Teacher Life: Objective Summaries

Happy Teacher Tuesday!

Today I'm back with another teacher post.
I'm sharing how I have students create objective summaries in class.

If you're familiar with 8th grade ELA New Learning Standards, then you know one of those is having students create objective summaries or summaries that don't include opinions.

We've been working at this since the beginning of the year and are nearly to the finish line.
At first, I had students read an article with their paired reading partner and write an objective summary together.
We since have moved up to students reading an article with their paired reading partner and writing an objective summary on their own.

Last week I allowed students to determine if they were ready for the graded objective summary.
They could either read another article and do another practice writing an objective summary or choose the article that I've posted below and write a summary for a grade.
I let students have the authority in determining their readiness.
I feel that giving students more ownership and choice in their work and learning helps them to become more responsible and mature learners.


The article

A rubric that I will use to grade them, which also should be used by the student to help them write their summary.

Directions for the assignment.

Here's an example of one students summary and how I grade them.

Once I grade these and give them back, we will soon transition to students reading articles on their own and writing the summaries on their own.

I like to scaffold this type of learning, so that I'm not assessing the students reading comprehension along with their writing skills.
Overtime that ownership of reading/comprehending and writing is built together.


Monday, January 29, 2018

2017 Books

Hey all!
Today I'm giving an overview of all of the books that I read in 2017!
I know we've been in 2018 for a month now, but I figured I would wait until the dust of the new year settled before giving a big recap. 
Next week I will share all of my books from January 2018, but for now here's 2017...

January






February


March




April


May



June

 via

 via

 via



July





August






September




October




November







December





37 books for 2017!
I haven't kept track of the amount (actual numbers) of books I've read each year.
Sure, I jot down the titles, but I never looked back to see how many until this year. 

While 37 books is a decent amount since I'm usually busy planning lessons and grading papers, there are months where I wonder what happened. 
Did I get in a reading rut or was life just busy?

This year I'm aiming for an even 40!
40 books in 2018!
Also, next year I hope to name a favorite book of the year in each genre. 
If I had to name an overall favorite for 2017 I would probably pick 

Little Beach Street Bakery

What a feel good, happy go lucky story set during summer in a bakery. 
This book reminds me of summertime!
It was the first book of summer 2017 that I read in my lounge chair by the pool.

So, if you're wishing to be in a lounge chair by the pool, grab this book. 
If you're interested in stories of overcoming, check out the books that I read in July and August. 
Those were all trials of books to use in literature circles in my classroom this year. 
Some made the cut and some didn't. 
I will save that post for another day.

Happy Monday!


Friday, January 26, 2018

Friday Favorites: Jumanji, House Updates, "Half Off Shirts"


Happy Friday!
It's a Friday Favorites kind of day!


As always, I'm linking up with ErikaNarci and Andrea
We're sharing our favorites from the week.
Grab their graphic and linkup with your favorites from the week, too.

Jumanji

If you know me, you know I don't love movies or sitting down for extended periods of time. 
Last week we had way too many snow days (5 days!), so Alex was prodding me out of the house. 
He said I was getting cabin fever and stir crazy. 

One night we went to our local movie theater to see Jumanji. 
I really was leery of going because I don't like anything that involves chasing people or is semi-scary, but I went anyway. 


I know I've seen the first Jumanji, but I don't really remember it, so I can't compare this one to the old one. 
Overall I would give it a 6 out of 10 stars. 
If you checked out my Friday Favorites last week, I shared Home Again. 
I would definitely rather watch a chick flick like Home Again over Jumanji; however, it broke up our evening and gave us a little midweek date night.

Home Updates

With all of this snow and time at home, I've been doing a few home updates.

First up was changing the trim color in our back entryway/hallway.
We had two "white" colors when we moved in.
One was for the kitchen cabinets and one was for the trim.
We accidentally started using the cabinet color on the trim.
It's a slight variation, but I can tell, and it really started to bother me, so I buckled down and changed the entryway.



I, also, wanted to change up the decorations we have in our office/spare bedroom.
This was our before:




The circular basket decorations used to be on the wall above the bed , but now they sit on a dresser near my jewelry box.


The sign now is above the bed and doesn't fall over in the middle of the night!!


I switched it out and love it so much better!


Just an easy little fix!
I love all of that light shining in!


Instant Pot

If you haven't jumped on the Instant Pot bandwagon, you should!
I had no intentions of getting one, didn't know how to use one or what to put in it, but I've caught on quickly. 
Earlier in the week I shared my Instant Pot chili



It's delicious and just a bit spicy spicy!


"Half Off Shirts"

After not seeing my students for 10 consecutive days, they were back with a vengeance. 
Some of these kids really crack me up. 
There's one particular class that pays close attention to my clothes. 

At first they weren't so verbal, but now they say whatever is on their mind. 
It started back in December with this shirt.
The students were stumped by the half ruffle.
Not only that, but I tucked one half of the bottom of the shirt in and left another half out.
They were really laughing at that and wanted to know "Is that the style??"

Actually one girl came back after Christmas break and said she saw a mannequin have one half of her shirt tucked in and one left out and they all were again laughing!

This week I wore this shirt because it was 60 degrees in January in Ohio and all of the snow disappeared!! 
Woohoo!

Anyway, they said "She has one of those shirts on again!"
Which proceeded to... did I get it for half off because once again there was only one ruffle on one side and not two!
That led to their inspection of the sleeves, which are kind of a bell sleeve that flares out a tad, but it doesn't have a regular button or anything; the sleeves from the wrist down are open. 
They are now insisting I tell them where I shop and why I keep buying these half shirts!

8th graders are too funny and so unpredictable!!

Snow

As I've mentioned on here a million times, we got a big rain/sleet/snow storm a couple of weeks ago. 
It was so bad that we had a week off of school because the ice layer underneath the snow made the roads super treacherous!


Most of the snow came overnight.
I woke up that morning and thought we hadn't gotten that much.
I headed out for my morning run and realized that I needed to shovel a path out.
We had gotten 8 inches!


Since it rained first, this snow was so heavy!
I got in my normal morning run and actually ran past where my parents live.
I was waving to my dad who was plowing their drive.
He couldn't tell it was me at first because I was still so far away, but he could see me bounding through the snow.
The snow was so deep that I really had to use my arms and propel myself forward to trudge through it all.
Thankfully most of my path had been plowed at least once, so I wasn't bounding all through town.
It was definitely an intense workout before returning home and shoveling our drive.

This weekend it's supposed to be in the 40's and 50's.
There's some rain in the forecast, but boy what a wonder warmer temperatures and even some son can do for you!
Hoping you all have a fun, warm and productive weekend!
Happy Friday!!