Tonight was our Meet the Teacher night on my middle school campus and it went so wonderfully! I am so excited because several of the students I have in my classes are ones who were either in the 1st grade class that I volunteered with when I was in college, or they were in my 4th grade class that I student taught in. I think that is going to make a huge difference because I already have such a great rapport with many of them and their parents too. I think it also helps that I do not feel nearly as overwhelmed this year simply because I have done this before. Monday will be the true test! :)
Once again I am linking up for Teacher Week that is going on over at Blog Hoppin'. The theme for today is technology. I thought that I would share some of my favorite websites with you all that I use on a daily basis.
Class Dojo- This is a great website that serves as a classroom management tool. I used this for the first time this past school year and feel in love with it. My 6th graders became very excited to see who would get to change their avatar first based on the number of points they earned. This was a great visual tool for my kids to see how they were doing too.
Spelling City- This is something that I share with my parents at our Open House. We still do spelling on my campus in 6th grade, but often there is not enough time in the week to practice our words in class. I upload our words for the week on Spelling City and then the students can access them at home to practice or in the library if they do not have a computer at home.
Pinterest- How could I not list this as one of my favorites? What did we ever do before this great tool for the classroom? Th only thing that would make it better was if I could get on it at school!
Be sure to come back tomorrow to check out where I teach!
LOVE your sites :) thanks for sharing I'm an English SL teacher and that one will be super helpful. I'm starting a blog with teaching ideas as well, maybe I can share some with you too! :) Some are strictly language but most can be adapted to all different subjects. Hope you like it! http://teachenglishconversation.wordpress.com/
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. I just wanted to ask you, what size class did you have last year? I signed up on Class Dojo but, having 32 children in my class, I was afraid that it would be too much of a disturbance in an already hectic classroom. Now I may have been entirely wrong about this and would be willing to give it a go some time. Did you use it often? Roughly how many times in the day would you award points?
ReplyDeleteEmer
A Crucial Week
I have not used Spelling City for a few years, so this might be a good year to bring it back. I could actually use it as a center for word work.
ReplyDeleteI am going to give Class Dojo a try. I have so few students who act inappropriately that it will not take long for the kiddos to earn points. (Very few will lose them.)
Thanks for everything you do and for all your shares. Happy New (school) Year!
-Mo
Could you tell us more about how you use Class Dojo? I used it briefly last year, but the class voted after 2 weeks that it was more of a distraction for them than a useful tool. I have a very different (and older - I moved from 4th to 6th) group this year, and might like to try again. How did you use the points for rewards/consequences? Anything you can tell would be helpful. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI am also curious how you used Class Dojo in your room. I signed up for it but don't quite get what to do with it. Do you have a blog post about it? Please explain.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
Justin Greene
http://inthegreeneroom.blogspot.com/