Brain Dump

I had wanted to try to blog on an almost daily basis about what I was doing with students in my classroom this year but that is pie-in-the-sky. Here are things from recently that I liked or want to remember for next year.

• 8th graders are far less willing to be silly/risk-take than 6th graders (have we beat it out of them?)
• Sitting on the desks to do an otherwise normal activity brought novelty that was good.
• Having difficulty getting kids to talk (particularly 1st thing in the morning)
• Reminded again & again how important relationships are to the work we do with kids.
• Need to have more defined roles when going outside for speed sapiens lab
• Using hand-signs for speed, velocity & acceleration worked well as a total participation technique.
  
• Haven't incorporated claps as form of recognition and reinforcement as much as would have liked.
• The egg demo & plate pull was effective as demos for inertia, liked also using the inertia hat as an engage.
• I think the spaghetti activity from the beginning of the year wasn't as effective as I hoped it would be. I'm curious what the other 8th grade teachers thought. Kids didn't want to try it. Wonder if kids thought we were breaking the rules of the 1st couple of day by asking more of them than just sitting & listening.
• Demo of walking while holding timers that I saw another teacher use was a good way to help kids understand, short time=fast speed & longer time=slower speed