Disadvantages of team-building activities. 22 classroom systems that make my teaching easier. My name is Deanna Roberts and I’m a third grade ELA/SS teacher in Ohio.
As a lifelong perfectionist and overachiever, the club has helped me achieve a healthier work-life balance and has changed my life for the better. I am much more intentional and productive during work hours thanks to the strategies I’ve learned in the club. As I’ve been in Angela’s 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Club for a full year now, (and then one year in the graduate program), I would like to post a short reflection of a few things I’ve gained from the club these past two years.
The strategies I’ve gained through the club have allowed me to leave work at work with few exceptions. My firm cut off time is 5:30 pm, which is 2 hours extra beyond contracted hours. There are several days each week that I leave work on time. Here’s how I do it. Each Chromebook is numbered and has a corresponding cord in the Chromebook cart. Energy and Calm: Brain Breaks and Focused-Attention Practices. When presented with new material, standards, and complicated topics, we need to be focused and calm as we approach our assignments.
We can use brain breaks and focused-attention practices to positively impact our emotional states and learning. They refocus our neural circuitry with either stimulating or quieting practices that generate increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, where problem solving and emotional regulation occur. Brain Breaks A brain break is a short period of time when we change up the dull routine of incoming information that arrives via predictable, tedious, well-worn roadways. How to Add a File to Multiple Folders in Google Drive without Copying. Gmail works around the concept of tags (or labels) and any email message can belong to one or more tags.
Google Drive has folders instead of tags and thus any file or folder in Drive can have a single parent folder. For instance, if you have uploaded a presentation file in Folder-A, it can’t simultaneously exist in Folder-B. Right? Well, you’ll will be surprised to know that Google Drive does allow you to place any file inside one or more folders without you having to create multiple copies of that file. This makes Drive organization easier and if you edit the file inside one folder, all the other instances are updated as well since they are essentially pointing to the same file. Here’s how you can place existing files or folders inside different multiple folders on Google Drive without making copies of the file. Open the Google Drive website in your desktop’s web browser and select one or more files or folders.
That’s it. This little feature will come handy in several cases. Ways to Divide A Group From the Simple and Mundane to Really Fancy -By: The Ropeslist Collective. The Question: It's been a little heavy on the list lately, so I'm going to break it up a bit.
I have a group I need to split into 10 teams of 4 people. Visibly Random Groups. 25 of MiddleWeb's Best New Teacher Resources. MiddleWeb is brimming with resources and helpful ideas that new teachers will find valuable.
We’ve selected 25 articles that might be MOST helpful before newbies greet their students at the classroom door for the first time. (Updated 7/25/17 with new resources!) We’ve also included MiddleWeb reviews of nine exceptionally “novice-friendly” books. When you’ve read everything here (smile), search our site for “new teacher” and you’ll find more! 1. How to Collect Files Through Google Forms. 6 Questions To Ask Your Students On Day One. It’s that time again – time to think about that very first day of school and how you greet your class on day one.
How will you begin to create an environment for risk and creativity? Will your students be greeted by rules and “thou shalt nots”, or by questions that set the stage for thinking and risking? Arts Integration Icebreaker Games. What student doesn’t love a teacher who gives them a piece of candy on the first day?
Icebreaker Activities for Arts Integration. If you are starting to plan your first 6 weeks of school, in addition to helping the students learn the routines of the classroom and the school you will want to plan activities that: are highly engaging; let you learn about your students and help the students get to know one another; let students start playing with the arts before you start trying to integrate them with content later in the year.
Here are a few ideas to help get students engaged, connected and ready for arts integration. And these icebreaker activities work for adults too! The resulting artworks can be shared if you so choose but just the act of creating will help facilitate connections between people. If you have the artists name their work that can be shared with the whole class with an explanation of why they gave the piece that name. This would allow everyone to get to know a little more about the presenting artists. Google Keep How To Videos. 50 Calm-Down Techniques to Try with Kids. Icebreakers that Rock. Tips for Using Breakout EDU - Google Slides. Open Space Technology: Decision by Inclusion. The first time I heard of Open Space Technology was in 2013 at the initial meeting of the Teacher Resistance and Action Network, a group of teachers and education practitioners who had gathered under the guidance of Dr.
Thomas Poetter of Miami University to discuss how to teach responsibly in the age of high-stakes testing. My friend and mentor, Kevin Lydy, had invited me to attend what was billed as a non-conference. It was a life-changing experience, not only because of the great conversations that I had with fellow educators, but also because I learned about a technique that I'd never heard of before: Open Space Technology. Memory Hacks. Sensory Break Ideas for Kids. Sensory Break Ideas for Kids. 10 Crossing Midline Exercises For Kids - Golden Reflections Blog. Waking the Brain with Morning Stretches. You might remember a few weeks ago when I wrote about my take away from the Kagan training that I attended and how I was planning to Refocus Our Classroom.
One of the big ideas that I touched on was waking up the brain through big muscle movement. So this month for the Bright Ideas link up I am sharing how it is going. The short version is that it is amazing! The long version isn't all that long, so I will share it with you. Each morning, after our class meeting, we do a series of stretches. To perform this stretch you simply start by reaching your right hand across the midline of your body as far left as you can while simultaneously stepping your right foot back. Then you repeat with the left side and say, "Cookies! " Why Kids Need to Move, Touch and Experience to Learn. When students use their bodies in the learning process, it can have a big effect, even if it seems silly or unconnected to the learning goal at hand.
Researchers have found that when students use their bodies while doing mathematical storytelling (like with word problems, for example), it changes the way they think about math. “We understand language in a richer, fuller way if we can connect it to the actions we perform,” said Sian Beilock, professor of psychology at the University of Chicago. Consider this word problem: Two hippos and two alligators are at the zoo. Pete the zookeeper feeds them at the same time. In an experiment on third graders, students were divided into two groups. The answer: “Kids who acted out the story did better on this problem,” Beilock said. 5 Tips for keeping kids active throughout the day. It doesn’t take many weeks into the school year before you start noticing a change in your students.
Gone is the excitement generated at the beginning of the school year when learning is fresh. Now, students are struggling to stay on task. To boost engagement, give your learners ways to stay active throughout the day. According to the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, being more physically active offers many benefits to classroom children. Energizing Brain Breaks: Energizing Brain Break Crab. Energizing Brain Breaks: Toe Tapping Energizing Brain Break. Toe Tapping 1. Stand Up.2. Face your partner.3. Both you and your partner put out your right leg and tap your right feet together 1 time and say "1" out loud.4. Tap your left feet together 3 times and say "3" out loud.5.
Tap your right feet together 2 times and say "2" out loud.6. 20 Three-Minute Brain Breaks. Wednesday's guest post about why kids need to move from pediatric occupational therapist Loren Shlaes was so popular that I decided to follow it up with a list of Brain Breaks you can use with your students. These are great to use anytime your students are feeling restless and are struggling to pay attention. Most of these will only take a few minutes, and then you can get back to the lesson with your students ready to focus on the lesson at hand.5-4-3-2-1. In this simple game, students stand up and the teacher (or leader) has them do five different movements in descending order. For example the teacher would say: "Do fivejumping jacks, spin around four times, hop on one foot threetimes, walk all the way around the classroom two times, give your neighbor one high-five (pausing in between each task for students to do it).Trading Places Have students stand behind their pushed-in chairs.
Please note that I did not come up with all of these out of my own head. Icebreakers that Rock. We’re coming up fast on the beginning of another school year. That means a new batch of students to get to know, students who need to be made comfortable in your classroom, and who need to get to know each other.
It’s essential to start building relationships with your students right from the start. And how to accomplish this? Icebreakers. Creative Commons. The Best Classroom Cleaning Hacks. A hack a day – for teachers by teachers. What are your favorite teacher-hacks? : Teachers. My Top 5 Organizational Hacks for Teaching High School. I'm not a naturally organized person. In July before my first year of teaching, I remember being at the office supply store in the file/tray/organizer aisle, picking up a single black tray and thinking, "Hmm ... this should do it. " 10 of Our Favorite Classroom Organization Hacks for Teachers. We’ve always believed that the way our classrooms look and feel is a reflection of our personalities and teaching styles.
Teacher HACKS: Innovative Teaching Tips And Strategies. Teachers these days have a tough job (was it ever easy??). 17 Insanely Clever Hacks For Teachers, By Teachers. 29 Clever Organization Hacks For Elementary School Teachers. 1000+ ideas about Classroom Hacks on Pinterest. 37 Insanely Smart School Teacher Hacks. 7 Ways to Hack Your Classroom to Include Student Choice. Hack the Classroom Registration - Microsoft Education. How Improv Can Open Up the Mind to Learning in the Classroom and Beyond. Brain breaks. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. Breakout EDU. Help Your Students Focus With These Brain Breaks. The closer to the holiday break we get, the harder it is for our students to focus; they’re either falling asleep or climbing the walls! Brain Breaks Educational Videos. Notpron by David Münnich - The Hardest Riddle Available on the Internet.
Enter the main page: How to Expertly Organize Your Classroom With Google Sites. A few months into my personalized learning foray, I got stumped by the challenges of organizing a blended curriculum. Comic Master. Digital Storytelling on Blendspace. Exploratorium: the museum of science. Www.livebinders.com/media/get/Mjg3Mjc1OA== List of Science Fair Project Ideas. Step-by-Step Guide to Science Experiments. Timeline JS - Beautifully crafted timelines that are easy, and intuitive to use.
Room Escape Maker - Create Escape The Room Games For Free. Basic information ROOM ESCAPE MAKER is a free online application to create Escape The Room games. Let’s Play! 20+ Sites for Young Learners. Inspiring Teaching Ideas on Pinterest. 10 Best Tools for Teachers and Students to Use in 2014. The Best Of Classroom Tips, Hacks And Resources. Classroom Hacks: The Rubber Band Control Valve and the Duct Tape Anti-Clicker. Hack the Classroom Registration - Microsoft Education. Teacher HACKS: Innovative Teaching Tips and Strategies. Classroom Management Hacks. Classroom Hacks for Teaching in the Trenches. 29 Clever Organization Hacks For Elementary School Teachers. 37 Insanely Smart School Teacher Hacks. Intermittent fasting - Bing.