Elementary invades Secondary

Elementary vs. Secondary

The gap between elementary and secondary isn't just middle school. For the most part, secondary teachers stay away from elementary teachers. Just walk into their respective classrooms and you'll see one reason why.

AHHHH!! MY EYES!!

Peaceful, zen, orderly... much better

And there are other reasons: their enthusiastic demeanor, endless optimism, tolerance for bodily secretions. I'm sure our sharp sarcasm, minimalistic classrooms, and constant complaints about having over a hundred kids instead of twenty-five don't do well to bridge the gap between our worlds. 

However, I don't want to discount everything they do in their classes as "little kid" stuff that would never work in my "big kid" class. After all, their little kids are still living inside every one (of my 157) kids sitting in my stark, white classroom. 

My Adventure with the Dangerous Game

I thought I'd try out one of the most famous aspects of elementary school: centers (dun-dun-duuuuunnnnnn). The first thing I realized on my road to creating centers (after I thought about how I have no space to let kids mingle about in my sardine can of a room) was they are A LOT of work. Seriously! How does any one person plan center after center throughout the year? That endless optimism must come in handy for them because geez! 

But, after I did the work I didn't have to do ANY. THING. ELSE. I just released the hounds students and they began chiseling away at their work. Sure, I had to help when we switched stations to ensure no one got lost along the way, and there were some that didn't understand the directions here and there, but for the most part they kids helped each other while I sat back and watched the magic happen. Then I thought, no wonder elementary teachers do this. It's like putting on a movie (that you made) and letting them sit and watch it. 

Get it here.

I plan to use more centers this year, and I'm going to start my year with this one I made for Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game." I am going to make a few changes this year. Last year, we read the story without stopping to talk about anything. Just plowed right on through. As an English teacher that was hard, but the point is to let the students discover meaning on their own, not spoon-feed it to them, so leave your spoons at home. After reading, I gave the students numbers 1-9. Whichever number they got, that's where they began. We did three centers per day, but that wasn't really enough time for the kids to finish each station so I have a lot of them in tutoring to get done. This year, I'll probably do two centers per day. It doesn't matter what order the centers are done in either. At the end, they turn in every paper with a silhouette of an island on the bottom. It's that easy. And the grading wasn't too bad either. 

The best thing I learned from doing centers was that I shouldn't stay away from those bubbly elementary teachers. They could have just the thing my classroom is missing. And I don't mean thousands of colors. 

Happy teaching!

Using Memes: Classroom Rules Edition

Hilarious. Ubiquitous. Perfection. 

Memes are fascinating for some unexplainable reason. I Other people spend hours combing through the interweb to find funnier and better memes. That's why there are about 17,000 different meme generators out there. 

I wanted to try them out and I thought what better way to use memes in my classroom than with the silly rules I make up each each year. So, I hopped on to a meme generator and in about ten minutes I had nine perfect memes. There was only one problem. I couldn't print them out because the images were just too little. I did some more googling, found another meme maker to no avail. There is nothing out there that just pops out memes in high resolution for teachers to print out. (WHY NOT INTERNET??) I thought about buying them, but then I would have to buy less for two reasons: #1 I don't have the wall space for nine posters, and remember how I'm a teacher? #2 I don't have the pocketbook for that kind of project.  

I had to take another road. My ten minute project turned into a four hour monster of a task, but I did it. I will save you the drama and heartache I had to undergo and skip to the "It is finished" part. 

Here are a few of my masterpieces:

 

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. (And I do.) If you want all of the images, you can purchase them here as pdf files. There are rules for talking, make up work, texting, lining up at the door (we don't do that because we are in high school), tardiness, name on paper, cheating, participating, and extra credit. I know what you are thinking: that's so many rules... what would Harry Wong say? I would say, Mr. Wong, they are cute and funny and totes adorbs, so I can have nine. 

If you'd rather make your own... then I wish you all the luck in the world. Just a quick note: a glass of wine might be a good idea.   

Happy teaching!!