Week 8 is a thing of the past, wahoo! I’m excited that we are launching rockets outside this afternoon for science class. I hope to have pictures up next week!

1. New Seats – “New Seats Day” is a middle schooler’s most hated or favorite day ever, depending on how everything shakes out. I give my students new seats every 2 weeks. We do a lot of partner talk and small group discussions, so I like to keep things fresh and interesting by always getting new partner arrangements. As I told my students on the first day, it doesn’t matter whether you love your seat or hate your seat – it WILL change in 10 days. My seating policy has not only cut down on the excessive complaining and repeated requests (more like begging), but it has really been a benefit to student learning and discussion. Fortunately, I have a computer program (Infinite Campus) that randomly generates new seating charts, which really makes things easier on me. Since it’s random, I also don’t have to put any thought into it, and I always reserve the right to ‘rearrange’ if things just aren’t working (or comply with IEP requests for preferential seating).

2. Common Core Flip Book – I purchased this flip book online. It’s really fantastic! Yes, I do realize that the CCSS are all available for free online, but having this resource at my fingertips has been very handy. I would recommend it!

3. Breakup Letter – We are finally up to the Declaration of Independence with my Social Studies class. As a warm-up at the beginning of class, I read them this note that I said I ‘found’ yesterday in my classroom. My class is pretty bright, and they knew something was up. I asked them why I might be reading it, and they eventually deduced that it was from the American Colonies to Great Britain. We did a close reading of two key sentences, and I asked them which historic events it could be referring to. Neat activity!

4. Standards Based Grading Scale – I’ve been researching and drafting a Standards Based Grading Scale that we could adopt as an entire school. This is my draft so far. A good friend encouraged me to add the 2.5, since so many students seem to fall in that chasm between apprentice and master – I agree. I’m going to try it out for a while and see how it works. I like the language a lot better than “Advanced, Proficient, Basic, Minimal,” which often doesn’t mean much to students. This language is borrowed from history, literary lore, role-playing games, and video-gaming, which hits closer to home for my students.

5. Annual Pumpkin Carving – For the past 4 or so years, we have made it an annual event to carve pumpkins with very dear friends of ours. We find cool patterns online, print them out for free, and have a blast making a mess. Mine is Jack Skellington on the right 🙂 Evil smile! Do you recognize Toothless from ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ and the Hitchhiking ghost from the Haunted Mansion at Disneyworld?

How was your week? I hope you are making the most of October, as it is coming to a close quickly! Enjoy the weather, food, and creature comforts of fall!