Lessons With Coffee

Hi there!  I have been slacking on the blogging lately.  When summer started I was upset that I was not going to be teaching summer school, and that I had to drop out of Grad School for a while (Due to some REALLY ridiculous issues at a different school not allowing my transcripts to get set over...Long story really.), but I have actually been INCREDIBLY busy this whole summer.  I wanted to do a quick share for an activity that you can do on the first day of school and how I used it last year! (I wish I had pictures!!! That is going to be one of my goals this upcoming school year is to take more pictures in my room, of my products.  I think it is actually going to become a classroom job!!!) So here it is I posted this last year about this time but it works so well.  I have it as a freebie in my TPT store. You can click the picture or HERE to download.   This is what I did last year and will do again this year on the first day of school. ...

And that sucks. If you have read my blog you know that this year I teach 3 classes of just 6th grade girls and 2 classes of just 7th grade boys and one class of just 8th grade boys.   We are a gender segregated school. Anyway.  We also have TERRIBLE test scores.  Our scores are so bad, the students that are placed in the "advanced" classes...are students who are scoring at proficient. It is pretty bad.  I would say of my seventy-two 6th graders, maybe 12 are really proficient at their multiplication facts. I watch students skip count, I watch students make tally marks, I watch students make arrays.   As I start teaching students how to simplify expressions using the distributive property, I am looking at these children and wondering how are you going to factor binomials if you have to count on your hands 9x5?!?!?!?!?!?!  I CAN NOT STAND lattice multiplication (this subject is sore, and worth it is own post), but for crying out loud I ...

As I stated in my last post I have some unruly children in my 7th grade boys.  We were told that we are not allowed to have children take breaks in the hallway any more and that we had to find a "safe environment" for them in our classroom. Seriously Mr. Assistant Superintendent.  You give me a classroom that is built for 24 and put 34 kids in it and expect me to SOMEHOW also find an "environment" for them to calm the EFF down? Fine. I went to Mecca Target the other day and scored this table for 11$. Do not judge my manipulatives on the shelf.  PS. When is Google/Word/Excel/Powerpoint going to figure out that manipulative not just a verb but is also a noun and therefore can be pluralized? It is perfect because it is only about 18 inches deep and maybe 24 inches across.  One person table. I also got the tiny clip board and the pencil box in the Dollar Spot.  Target is really starting to love teachers.  I have found so many good things in ...

I have been Struggling with my 7th grade Pre- Algebra class a lot since I was handed it in October.  It did not help that I was gone for 3 weeks.  I have them 7th hour.  I am the only teacher of 7th grade boys that hour that is a content class (ie. all but my 26 boys have PE, art, computers, or some other elective 7th hour)  I have 6 poor girls that are stuck in this class of smelly boys.  I feel bad for them really.  There is a reason that 7th grade boys do not have a core class 7th hour.  THEY ARE CRAY-CRAY!!!! The boys are all very sweet, but they are also very loud, hyper, and some are also very rude.  I have to PATHOLOGICAL liars.  I will watch them throw things (my things: pencils, crayons, erasers, paper balls, pen caps, glue sticks, legos, scissors.  Really what ever they can get their little hands on.), then lie when I call them out.  "ON ME!  I didn't throw ANYTHING!"  It is getting old.  I have one k...

I want desperately to post about my ISN's which are going smashingly with both my 6th graders and my 7th graders! But I do not have pictures or anything yet....I will get on that ASAP.   BUT. I want to share today about my Frayer Model dilemma and solution. I love FM's.  They rock my vocabulary world.  What I did not love was the "non example" section.  Often I could think of a non example but had a hard time verbalizing it to students.  OR if I let them come up with a "non example" they almost always had a miss conception about the word.  So I changed it to PROVE IT/DRAW IT. This has worked SO MUCH BETTER than it did last year.  It really helps my kiddos who are struggling with the abstract thoughts and put's it very concretely, pictorially and allows them that kinesthetic avenue of modeling and drawing it out.  SO I wanted to share it with you. Here is a picture of what it looks like: You can download them here:...

OH my goodness.  I was going to come home and blog about completely lame things just to put a blog up.  BUT I got home, checked the mail and my SLANTbox from Molly at Lucky To Be In First finally came!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ON a side note...Does anyone know how to rotate pictures on BLOGGER with out editing the picture first?  I am LAZY as dirt!  I was super excited!  It was the perfect ending to a GREAT first day with my students.  Yes yesterday was our first day but as I said in my CURRENTLY, I only got to hang out with my homeroom.  Today I got to meet all my kiddos!!!!!! INside of my box was a cute hand written note...New nail polish (That I don't already have...double score!!!!)... A super cute owl nail file (going strait to work!)...Binder rubber bands!!!!! (Oh my gosh.  I love these.  I use them in my huge binders for PD, my binders for GRAD SCHOOL, and my binders for LEGO League!!!!!)...and the cutest stinking note cards known to ...

I feel like I have not had any time what so ever to put forth into this blog.  How do you all do it?  DO you set side time daily, monthly?  Or do you just do it when you get time.  I feel like I have so much to tell everyone but I seriously have no time to sit down and write it out articulately!  I am loveing INSTAGRAM for quick updates but feel like I am letting quite a few of you down! I have done a lot for my classroom and had a little bit of time to work in it yesterday.  I will be there all day on THursday and Friday and even have a little helper coming in to help me on Friday (Yaye!)  So hopefully I get everything done before opening week! Here are a few down loads if you want them!  I am desperately working on getting more up and out but that takes time too.  YOu make something for yourself to use, then to change it to an editiable format takes time, then I have to upload it to a place you can download it.  It is time cons...

It's gonna take a lot to take me away from you  There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do  I bless the rains down in Africa   When I went to Africa Each and everyone of us had that song on our ipods!  What does AFRICA have to do with this post?   Well....Free stuff of course! I saw a bunch of Pennent Banners floating around Instagram in the last few days so I decided to make some of my own.  Before I get to mine, which yes you can have, I want to show the ones I liked a lot on IG! IG misswolgy IG ilovemyclassroom IG smittenwithfirst IG topdogteaching So then I decided to make my own.  I have a color theme.  I decided I did not want to do all animal print, or all chevron, or all anything.  I just wanted fun bright colors.  The colors I chose are blue (aqua), purple, orange, yellow, lime green, and hot pink. I also decided that my banners were going to be zebra print.  In order to do that I h...

I posted a picture of my to do list on Instagram and had quite a few questions about what some of them are.  Here is the picture I posted: The first question I got was "How do you plan to paint a pocket chart?" from Katie at Keep Calm Float On .  Well it is a little hard to explain so I will do a tutorial of it sometime next week.  :)  Promise. The Second question I got was "What is your get to know me poster?" from Marissa at  My Classroom Is My Runway . WELL.  Here it is: Click the picture or HERE to download.  It is what I am going to have my kiddos to on the first day of school, then I am going to take them per class and put them in a binder for myself and for new kids.  They can check out the book and get to know their classmates. I will fill one out for each of my classes books too.  BUT!  I also create a huge one (anchor chart sized) and post it up first day. First day of 6th grade, new school, 5 elementa...

THis is not the original post I had up.  I have been asked to take it down, however there is still a handful of this post that is relevant and I spent a ton of time on it...So I am leaving it up. Oh My goodness it has been a WEEK since I last posted and I am sorry.  NO excuses...but here is one...I am in three grad courses right now and trying to get everything ready for my room.  I have been totally busy over on Instagram.   Click here to follow me!!!!!!  Tomorrow I have a really good post coming with a linky (seriously google, figure out that linky is a word and quit changing it back to link!!!), mega pictures of projects, and a post about word problems with math!  Stay Tuned!!!! Want to win this: I got the idea from Erica Cerwin at PinkBuckaroo Designs  you know you saw it on Pinterest and kind of wanted to do it!!!  Don't lie!  I made these for the fourth graders that I did my student teaching with last year.  They lov...