Oh Miss Teacher!

Google Forms

2012-11-18T19:31:00.002-05:00

I run our after-school program at my middle school. So we can figure out where students are quickly and easily. I have teachers or club/activity sponsors fill out the following google form:

http://poeravensnest.weebly.com/attendance.html

Google forms can be found within a gmail account under the "drive". You can set up a google account for free.

The results can be downloaded into an excel spreadsheet that you can sort easily and quickly. I love it! It will take up to 500 submissions but you can allow more by scrolling to the bottom of the spreadsheet in google and it will tell you to "add ___ more rows" put in as many as you would like.

I also use google forms for the following things in my classroom:

Warm Ups
Exit Tickets
Quizzes
Student Information - in the beginning of the school year or quarter
Back to School Night - to collect parent information
Quick Checks of students
Surveys
Pre-assessments
Reviewing for tests

A cool feature I like about the google forms is, if you use multiple choice as an answer option, you can send students to different pages - depending on what they answer. It seems confusing at first to set up, but google is extremely user friendly.

You can embed your forms into a website like I did above or you can share it with students if they have school email addresses like we do that is apart of google.

I love it!! If you have any questions, send me an email ohmissteacher@gmail.com I'd be happy to help you out!

Until next time...

OH Miss Teacher

QR Code

2012-11-13T14:35:00.001-05:00

I was given this awesome website from a friend for QR Codes if you have a chance to check it out, you should. We had mini-conferences at my school so I posted the following piece of paper on the table, so parents and students could get in contact with me.

Contact Oh Miss Teacher! Use your smartphone.

*You do need an app on your phone to use QR Codes.

Have fun making them!!

Hand Signals

2012-11-12T14:23:00.002-05:00

I am absolutely the biggest fan of hand signals. Not only does it help lower the amount of distractions within your classroom, it also help students not get up and leave your classroom as often. I use sign language to help me with me - R for Restroom, W for Water, and I do a thumbs up or thumbs down in response. I went over it the first day of school and remind them occasionally but they love it!

I got these images from clikr.com

I put a border around them in Word and put the word for what they stand for underneath. You can download them here

I also do "Check ins" students give me a thumbs up, thumbs sideways, or thumbs down if they are not understanding what we are going over. It helps me decide if my students are ready to keep going or not.
I liked Mrs. Gilchrist's example below and added my thumbs down to it. I'll post a picture of it later :)

Effort Grade Rubric - FREEBIE download

2012-09-13T08:31:00.000-04:00

As teachers, we all care about the effort our students are putting into their education, learning, and progress. In our school system, student do get graded on their effort, so I put together a rubric to help parents and students see how I am grading their child's effort so they don't feel it is a subjective grade.

This rubric in on a four point scale and has room for comments. I personally keep track of the days when I student does not receive a four and why, encase the parent has questions or would like to see progress.

Click here for the free download from TPT.

Until next time...
OH Miss Teacher
ohmissteacher@gmail.com

Have you heard of Teacher Lists??

2012-09-12T08:53:00.000-04:00

If you haven't already heard, teacherlists.com is a site you MUST check out. You can post the supplies you need or would like in your classroom to share with parents, sponsers, PTA, whomever you like. PLUS, they send you free stuff, I just got glue sticks, wet ones, and magic erasers in the mail today!

I am so excited when I get packages so hopefully you will enjoy signing up as much as I did! Who doesn't love free stuff?

Remembering 9/11...

2012-09-11T08:51:00.004-04:00

I'm not normally a mushy or personal sharer however, this year I felt I was ready to share my 9/11 story.

Can you believe it has been 11 years since 9/11? It is hard to believe that that so much time has passed. I remember this day as if it was yesterday, I was wearing a pink three quarter length shirt with jeans, a brown side backpack, and I had the original Nokia Cell Phone with a black/fuchsia cover. This was before color screen phones. I will never ever forget that phone as I tried to dial my family for hours. I have never shared this story with anyone.

I was a sophomore in high school in my Student Government class, the overachiever that I am was the President of my class, which meant I was in this class and of course, loved it. My teacher puts the TV on and tells everyone to sit down. Around 9:45AM we finally get word that the Pentagon has been hit. The shock that ran through my body was like no other, living in Washington DC, having a military father, and so many friends with military parents, we all just looked at each other. "The west side was hit, doesn't your dad work there?" That Nokia Cell Phone that I had just gotten at the beginning of the school year, was out and I was trying to call my dad and mom. HOURS went by without being able to get in touch with either of them and wondering what on earth was going on. Students were told to proceed with their day and teacher to turn off the TVs we don't want to scare the students. Well, we were beyond scared, we wanted to make sure our families were okay.

I couldn't tell you what my mother was wearing or the drive home from school, but I can remember running to her like I was a four year old getting pick up from the first day of preschool. I cried and cried because I was so happy to see her. She immediately took me from the school and we went home. She had not heard from my dad and knew the traffic was so bad that we couldn't go toward the Pentagon or DC to try to find him. So we played the waiting game with the television on of course, watching and waiting. Seeing footage like that of the one below.

After returning home my mother informed me that my father was supposed to be on Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon but because of car trouble, missed his flight and had taken another flight out to Los Angeles. Once he found out about the attacks the military man in him wanted to get home but of course no flights were available. So he searched for a rental car, which was extremely hard to come by as well. He drove all the way home, staying with family in the mid-west to get back to us and come back to "kick butt and take names" but used slightly different language if you know what I mean. I am lucky to still have my father here today. Many of his co-workers, my friend's parents are not so lucky as they were in the Pentagon that day.

A man from my church was severely burned in the fire, you can read his story, link below. Very moving story, even if you aren't religious.
http://www.facethefire.org/

Every year I watch President George W. Bush's speech that he said that day. I posted a link to it below. It moves me every year. What a country we are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMiqEUBux3o&noredirect=1

As you can tell, this event is one of many that defines my life and who I am. I truly believe that my positive outlook on life and want/need to live every day to the fullest is because of these type of experiences. They mold you and make you who you are. You might ask how I am bringing this back to teaching - it is our duty to make sure this day is never forgotten and we learn from the mistakes in our history so they are never repeated. We aren't just subject matter experts anymore, it is also our job to teach character, to be a good and kind person, a forgiving person, who doesn't let tragedy define us.

Until next time...
OH Miss Teacher <3
ohmissteacher@gmail.com

DIY: Dry Erase Boards

2012-09-08T18:24:00.002-04:00

I'll be honest, I spend so much money on my classroom and didn't want to spend $1 a dry erase board at the dollar tree for a class set, knowing they would probably last a couple of months. So... I used white card stock that my school already had and laminated them. They work like a charm. You can get white card stock anywhere - Walmart, Staples, Office Depot, and Target for reasonable price. If you want to do other colors it would be fun for a team activity.

If you don't have a lamination machine at your school, purchase a scotch laminator.

Here is the one I have on AMAZON
http://www.amazon.com/Scotch-Thermal-Laminator-Roller-TL901/dp/B0010JEJPC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347142839&sr=8-1&keywords=scotch+laminator

This thing is a life saver! I use it weekly.

Dry erase markers aren't always cheap but you can find them at the Dollar Tree, Target Dollar Section, or on Amazon.

Looking for eraser ideas? I use paper towels each period, but then clean them using a Magic Eraser. These are a god sent if you haven't found out about them yet.

http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Clean-Eraser-Cleaning-8-Count/dp/B001339ZMW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347142995&sr=8-1&keywords=magic+eraser

Until next time...
Oh Miss Teacher

ohmissteacher@gmail.com

Back to School 2012 - 2013

2012-08-13T16:29:00.003-04:00

Welcome to my blog. I have been following the blogger teacher world for a while now and finally decided that I wanted to join to group! This year I am teaching 8th Grade Basic Skills Math. My classroom theme is going to be black and white with damask accents. This week I am finally able to get into my classroom and start figuring out how/what I want to do.

I have a lot of stuff to post and am hoping to get it all done throughout the week. The reason I decided to call my blog oh miss teacher! is because this is what my students call me on a regular basis. Oh Miss or Oh Miss Teacher - I have a lot of students who are from other countries and don't always call you by your last name. I've had to teach them this. So I thought it would be a good tribute to them.

Until next time...

Oh Miss Teacher <3