TN Teacher

I am a 6th grade Language Arts teacher in Tennessee. This is my third year teaching, and I'm here to share with you all the great things I've found on the world wide web. I hope to share with you my lessons and materials, as well as everything else that piques my interest regarding middle school education!

[tnteacher-blog]

Hi. Do you have any templates or printables for the noun activities you have posted ?

Hi! I went back through my posts and only see a few foldables on nouns, so if that's what you're referring to I use foldables from Dinah Zike's notebook foldables book. I hope that helps!

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Pretty excited about what arrived in the mail today.

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And this is why I love the holidays. Peppermint shake :-)

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Yay for seasonal flavors! (Taken with Instagram)

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Pumpkin Spice lattes to help finish the drive. (Taken with Instagram at Starbucks)

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Question

I'm looking for a good website to purchase storage options for my classroom, but the catch is they need to accept school purchase orders so I can use my $100 allotment. Anybody have a good website they order from? They cannot reimburse me so it needs to be something I can use a purchase order for. A lot of teachers go to a local place for supplies but they don't have storage options.

Any ideas? I've been googling and can't find any good sites.

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Finally getting a chance to sit outside and enjoy the beautiful weather. (Taken with Instagram)

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I've spent a couple hours reorganizing my pinterest boards, and so I wanted to invite you to follow me. The posted link is just a link to all my boards, but here are the Education related boards.

Classroom Ideas - Basic classroom ideas for any classroom and grade Classroom Management  - Ideas for classroom management- any grade

Interactive Notebooks - Mostly ELA related, but a few pins are non-ELA

Writing - Ideas for teaching writing and standards of writing

Common Core ELA - I'm slowly adding Common Core pins in, because at this point, ELA isn't being implemented until next year. And even then, there are going to be a few standards coming first, considered "focus standards."

Language Arts - Middle School LA resources

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Testing

Student: what am I doing?

Me: taking another test.

(She stands in the middle of the classroom pouting)

Me: come over. We need to get started.

Student: I don't want to take another test. There are too many. Why do I have to do this? I want to be with my class.

Me: I know. I'm sorry. I think this is the last one for a little while.

I sit there just as sad as she is.

I don't think people understand what standardized testing does to kids with disabilities. You can't herd them all in a room and just have them take it. Some kids have the whole test read to them. Depending on the test, each question could be different (this is specific to math). You can't read 4 different tests at a time. So, I read them individually. I take precious instructional time to read an at times inappropriate leveled test to each child.

Don't even get me started on how I feel about administering a 6th grade reading test to a kid who reads on the 1st grade level. Not only is it not going to give anyone the information they want to know, but it makes that kid feel like crap.

Shame on the people who push for standardized testing.

Making a child with disabilities feel like crap one test at a time.

Test them enough and they willl start to believe it.

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It makes them feel like crap and if they're not taking a SPED version of the test (like some of my students who have IEPs but don't qualify for the MAAS) their scores are showing that they don't know anything. But more than likely, they just didn't understand.

[monpetitmondeamoi]

Our principal called a last minute meeting at lunch today. Everyone’s hearts stopped beating and we waited on baited breath for him to get to the staff room. We had been waiting all week to find out if we were going to have to surplus a teacher because our numbers in late immersion grade 8 were...

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hooray!

similar situation with us this year; 25 students with IEPs were all placed in the same room with 5 non-SPED. New teacher hired two weeks in meant that class was split in half. happy day!

[knerdy]

Teachers have a lot on their plate during the beginning of a school year. Yet worst of all, the sudden influx of new students mean that teachers are far more likely to get sick within the first few weeks. This means that, in addition to setting up their classroom and struggling to learn names,...

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I'm on of those teachers that posts ten pages, lol. But I've had multiple subs say it make their job easier. The ones that take a few minutes to flip through my notes are undoubtedly going to have an easier day with my students. I've taught them what to do, but even the best students will try to take advantage of a substitute.

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And one more post for you guys since I fail at updating my blog.

It was homecoming week at school, and Thursday was favorite team day. Soooo, I made a t-shirt! Anytime the kids asked about it, I said, "My favorite team? Team Peeta!" They got a huge kick out of it.

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Some of these are really funny.

I had every intention of posting updates on my interactive student notebooks, but I really fail this week. I didn't even get around to taking pictures.

So, I'll just pass this on to you for now.

[mcdavis]

[missescargotpudding]

I had stress induced nigh terrors all night, and was depressed all day at work. I hated being their, and was at-the-end-of-my-rope frustrated with my kids. This is the first time I’ve really had to deal with my extreme anxiety and depression while at work - usually it creeps up in the evening, or...

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My first year, I was too nice. So I was exactly in your position. I found myself repeating the same instructions over and over, getting more and more frustrated my the lack of respect and attention to my lessons, and students not meeting my expectations.

Year two, I took a step back and realized something: The reason my students were acting this way is because I was letting them. Not consciously. But with every procedure I let slide, with every rule I was too lax on, with every situation I didn't address, my students learned what they could get away with doing. 

Year three, and I'm a good blend of year 1 and year 2. I try to be nurturing and  foster relationships, but with an iron fist. I've learned that being a stickler for rules and procedures makes me feel like things run more smoothly in my classroom, meaning I am more relaxed in my personality with my students.

I hope this makes sense. I am in no way blaming you, because we've all had a group of students that we, as the teacher, do everything exactly as we should and they still don't perform as we want. But also, as the teacher, we should constantly be on the lookout for ways to improve the one thing we can control: ourselves. 

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Last post, I swear.

As I've said before, I have 25 IEPs/504s this year which really demands some serious differentiation. Foldables have turned out to be difficult and time consuming, so as I've mentioned in past posts, I typically print them off. Or I skip the foldable entirely, as shown in the photo above.

I further change things up a little bit by making the information that needs to be written on the foldable easier. I lose their attention quickly, and long rules and complicated examples means I lose them too. For example, here, we just put one easy example on the inside of the foldable. I also had them write the rule in student-friendly language. Which, after reflecting on it, is a good idea for all students, not just my SPED ones.

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For pronouns, we did this a couple different ways. For my SPED students, I printed off the foldable and they filled in the information.

For my other classes, I had them make a trifold foldable and fill it out on their own.

I had them do their homework at the bottom so they would have five good examples of using pronouns correctly.

  By the way, I am in love with colored notebook paper.  Walgreens, Office Max, and Staples all carry it. I think it adds a fun touch to the notebook.