Escape Room The Game

Gold Stars One of my favorite things to do my third year of teaching was team teach. The Civics and Economic teacher and I would put our classes together regularly so we could create cross curricular stations and activities for the kids. The arrangement worked out great because, even though there were more kids in the room, the kids were less willing to act up with two authority figures in the room. One day the Civics teacher’s side of the room was going downhill and fast, while my side of the room was behaving like angels. Finally, he called out, “Whoever is being good will get a gold star!” (Amazingly 8th graders coveted these stars like none other). The room got completely silent and without missing a beat one of the students on my side of the room said, “You mean like Hitler did to the Jewish people?” I suppressed my laughter and thought to myself, “Yes, finally they are retaining true things about WWII!” Then I thought to myself, “Too bad I don’t teach history.”

Welcome Back Everybody! Every school system I have ever had the privilege of working at has held a convocation to welcome the teachers back from summer break. I don’t know about you but I can’t think of a better way to get teachers pumped for the upcoming school year than to stick them in a hot and musty high school auditorium for three hours and COMMANDING them to be better than the previous year. I can think of better ways to pump teachers up such as: giving us an extra day of summer vacation in lieu of attending convocation, recognizing accomplishments we have made instead of reminding us in all the areas we could have done better, giving us our standard pay increase. Hell, even giving me a shiny new quarter would pump me up more than a well executed convocation. During my fifth year of teaching I walked into the school avoiding most everyone I could so I didn’t have to do the obligatory, “How are YOUUUUUU?! How was your summer? Did you cut your hair? Happy to be back?” song and dan...

My students were recently completing my Zombies Paired Passages Activity. As I was monitoring the students answers, I told a student that she needed to be more descriptive about exactly how a zombie sounds. She told me she had no idea how to describe how a zombie sounds. I told her to try to think of what one sounds like in her head and then figure out what onomatopoeia that would be. One of my other students popped her hand up and said, "I would say that it sounds like a student who doesn't know the answer to a question the teacher just asked.  Ummmm Ummmm Ummmm!" Lemme tell you this had me rolling...and still does actually!  If you are interested in the activity my students were completing when this humorous exchange happened, click the picture below! 

I started a new classroom management technique in my classroom this year that worked quite well! I only use it on days when I can feel that the class vibe is off. That usually means pep rally days, before holidays, and on full moons! :) I created this board for my class: How I use Mystery Student I have all my students' names written on slips of paper and separated into holders by block (These are magnetic IKEA holders that I Gorilla Glued tacks to). At the start of class I will choose one name randomly and tack it next to the sign. As class goes on, I write the names of disruptive or off task students on the board. At the end of class I reveal who the mystery student is, and if their name is not on the naughty list, the whole class gets a piece of candy or sticker. It is surprising how much middle school kids love stickers! Students also encourage each other to behave and stay on task because not only do they want the piece of candy, they don't want to be the reason that EVERY...

So a few years ago I started using a classroom incentive system and it has worked wonders for my students! I revamped my system a little bit last year and thought I would share with you! I decided that I wanted to teach students a little bit about the value of patience and saving, along with being rewarded for good behavior. I got a three drawer cart organizer from Target and put scrapbook paper inside and the amount of incentive cards each drawer cost on the front. The  bottom  drawer held small items like miniature chocolate bars, bubbles, erasers, balls, pencils. Basically items that were one dollar or under. The  middle  drawer held full size candy bars, slime, mechanical pencils, mustache pens. Things that cost one to two dollars. The  top  drawer held king size candy bars, blow up balls, sea monkeys, big lollypops. Things that cost between two to four dollars. I eventually got smart and realized that I could buy a lot of the items for CHEAP for the bo...