Escape Room The Game

So I am jumping into the world of Youtube. Dipping my toes in if you will! I don't have fancy frames, and covers, and music, but I still think it could be informative! In this video I unbox my latest prop haul from Amazon for both VIPKid and GoGoKid! Check it out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4c36p5f4Ik&t=3s

So the schools that I have taught at have been all about grouping students the last few years. They want the students working collaboratively to answer questions and solve problems, as well as differentiate.  I use so much music in my classroom I couldn't figure out how I was going to do that with so many different groups on so many different songs.  Enter, the headphone splitter! I found this handy dandy headphone splitter on Amazon and bought one for each group.  Then when they are listening to the songs on Youtube.com or Prezi all they have to do is plug the headphone splitter into the iPad, laptop, or Chromebook and the entire group is ready to go and hear the same thing all at once.  Did you guys know about this neat little gadget?

One of the things that I hate every. single. year. is putting bulletin board paper up!  It never fits properly and trying to line the various pieces of paper up is so frustrating as well! I tried many different solutions over the years. I tried sheets, I tried fabric, I tried shower curtains.  Finally, I had an idea! PAINT (Cue hallelujah chorus music) I decided to paint my bulletin board with a pretty universal color that would show up in most borders or could transform into a specific background if need be. (I recommend a blue!) I got a quart of pain and a roller and I went to town! It's great! It doesn't need to be replaced, it doesn't fade in the over time, and it can be reused over and over again! 

It Doesn’t Matter if You’re Black or White One of the other new teachers who started at the same time as me was the art teacher. He was a nice fellow, slightly nervous, but nice nonetheless.  He had a really, REALLY tough year. I can honestly say that as bad as my year was, his was worse (and remember I had to press charges on a student).  Students were wild down in the art room (which was referred to by most as “the dungeon”). They would throw chairs, they would start fights, they would scream, some would even engage in sexual activity.  It got to the point that the art teacher would be out weeks at a time due to the stress his students caused him.  At the end of the year the superintendent decided he would like to take all the new teachers to dinner. While at this dinner he thought it would be fun for everyone to stand up and tell how their first year of teaching went.  When it was the art teacher’s turn he stood up and said, “Well…my first year was ...

So I just discovered an incredible new reward system for our little kiddos at VIPKid or GoGokid!  These funny face sticker books are perfect for kids of all ages! If I know the girl is a girly girl I do one of the princess or jewelry books. If I know that a boy's favorite animal is a tiger I pull that page ahead of time.  During the lesson at intervals I allow the students to pick facial features! Even my most serious of boys belly laughed at their final product! The best part?! Every student I have used this with has priority requested me a few minutes after the lesson ended. Coincidence? I think not! Check out some of the books I have below! Some of my students' creations!

America the Beautiful My second year at hell a new person was introduced to my team. His name was Mr. Chirila (Pronounced Key-Real-Ah) no one ever knew how to say his name and constantly mispronounced it. The mispronunciations ranged from gorilla to chinchilla. He was part of a work program from Romania (Because again, my school couldn’t find anyone in the continental US who would work for their school). He looked extremely busy and mean when I first met him, but the more I got to know him the more I realized that he was extremely funny and sarcastic. During one of the first faculty meetings of the year, Chirila decided to sit next to me. I was fine with this because we were becoming close friends. This turned out to be a disastrous mistake. During the meeting the administrators told us that they were going to have to ask a lot more of their teachers. They were going to need us to fill out three extra forms every benchmark, and turn in lesson plans in triplicate, and a plethora of othe...

Two weeks before I began teaching my first year, my county   required me to go to two weeks of new teacher “training” (we will use this term “training” very loosely).  What they were training us on for two weeks was how to watch educational videos, teach us how to fill out forms, play games, and “teach” us how to write lesson plans (we are also going to use the term “teach” very loosely). Which one are you? One interesting thing to note is that my first-year teaching was also my mother’s first year teaching. My mother and I were both going through the same new teacher orientation together. We both were going to complete our first year of teaching together. She was starting out as a 1 st grade teacher and I a 7 th grade teacher. We were going from one extreme to the other.   Tag You’re it! Another phase of training was game playing.   That being said, the first day of training, the powers that be stated that everyone should stand up and “tell us about yourself” (appar...