Symbolism Island Projects!

Saturday, August 25, 2018
I was so excited to start my year off with a project with some getting to know you projects. For a few years, the projects of Ms. Lopez in the Art Room have caught my eye! She does these amazingly colorful autobiographical island projects that are absolutely beautiful. I thought this would be an absolutely great way to get to know my students in the beginning of the school year!

First, I introduced the concept of symbolism after reading, What Do You Do With a Chance, by Kobi Yamada. This is a lovely story about a boy not taking chances when he becomes discouraged from repeatedly failing.  Throughout this story, a butterfly will appear around the boy.  The students easily make a connection that the butterfly symbolizes possible opportunities and chances at a better life for him, but the question is, will he be brave enough to take a risk? This book is a GREAT way to introduce a project on symbolism! 

I also introduced the concept of symbolism with the following passage.  
This gave my students some background knowledge on the concept of symbolism! 
Next, students think more in depth about symbols that represent their personality and how they would like to shape their island.  I gave them the following directions page so that they could think about their plan.  Click on the picture below or here to grab this project!
Here are some amazing examples below! 
I LOVE how these pictures brightened up my room!
Example #1
Example #2
Example #3
Example #3
Example #4

If you would like the link to the FREE printables, click HERE!

Starting the Year in a Digital Classroom

Monday, July 23, 2018

The last couple of years I have been slowly transitioning into a digital classroom! At this point, my students complete many of their assignments on Chrome Books, so I have been busy trying to catch up with transforming my resources digitally.  I would like to share this welcome survey (both digitized and paper versions) so that you can get to know your students better! 
 
Students are all at at a different places with technology, and of course some students 
feel more comfortable using Google Classroom than others.  
Taking this into consideration, I always like to give my students a technology survey.  
Click the picture of the survey below to grab the paper OR digital version!
Click on the picture below to download this survey!
There are a few projects I am extremely excited about incorporating into my classroom this year in hopes of becoming even more digitized.  This year I plan on having my students reflect a few times a week on their own digital learning wall in their Google Classroom. 
CREATING a DIGITAL LEARNING WALL!
How will the digital learning wall work? Students will complete the date, subject, and any key learning concept that jumped out of them for that day! Students can choose the subject and concept! At times, after a really important lesson, I may stop and have everyone go into their learning wall and add their learning.  The fun part??? After each learning concept, students will add a hashtag to describe their learning.  Hashtags allow students a great way to think of the MAIN IDEA and details of what they learned.  Students can get as CREATIVE with this as they like! 
Here is an example of what the September slide may look like!
If you are interested in implementing this in your classroom, 
there are templates for each month of the year! 
Click below for the link!
To get a bundle of all of my digital products, click the pic below!

How are you incorporating technology this year? Please share!

Upping Student Engagement! (Teacher Cheat Sheet Freebie!)

Saturday, April 7, 2018

It is so important to encourage student to collaborate during a lesson!  Not only so they have the opportunity to exchange ideas, but to take the focus off of the teacher, and back on the students.  Partner collaboration will definitely up your student engagement if you feel that students are sitting idle or appear "bored"! 

With this in mind, I always feel like it is important to change up my own delivery.  When I find myself in a rut, or saying the same things over and over again to my class we can often sound like broken records and let's face it…the students can get bored!  

I developed a "cheat sheet" that I can have right next to me while teaching so that I remind myself to use different ways for asking students to work with a partner, soliciting a response from them, responding to each other, and affirming their responses.  If you would like a copy to use in your classroom, click on the picture below! 
What phrases do you use that help students get involved? Please share! :)


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