Fake It Til You Make It

I thought being a grown up was supposed to be easy.  You were through with all of that "teen angst" stuff and didn't have to spend time self-reflecting and thinking about the kind of person you wanted to be.  Being an adult meant you WERE the person you wanted to be and that was that.  Right?

Well, I must be revisiting my angsty-teen self because I've been doing a lot of self reflecting lately.  And it's kind of gross.  I mean, who actually likes the idea of digging deep into your personality and analyzing the traits that made you do or say the thing that you lay awake at night replaying in your head wondering if it was alright?

Not me, I'll tell you that much.

But, regardless of liking it, it's exactly what I've been doing lately.  I've been thinking a lot about how I treat other people, why I do the things that I do, and (maybe most importantly) if those things that I do are aligned with my personal values, my hopes for my kids, and of course - because I'm a teacher - my classroom rules.

One of my classroom rules that I've always been most proud of is:

I feel very strongly that we owe it to each other to be kind, always.  And I've always thought that we should play by that old rule that our moms teach us: "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."  But I have a big mouth - a VERY big mouth - and a quick wit with a slow filter.  The result? I end up saying all sorts of junk that isn't very kind and that I probably should have kept to myself.  Point being -- I can't live by this rule, so how can I expect a classroom of angsty pre-teens to live by it?  So ultimately, the problem must be with me: how can I teach myself to be silent instead of snarky?

There are several people in my life that I think aren't very nice.  They're grouchy.  They don't say hello when people enter a room.  They don't laugh at my jokes.  And, maybe the worst violation of all: they ignore me.  When I speak to them, they don't reply.  They're silent.

For weeks now I've been considering that maybe they just don't know how to be kind to other people.  Maybe they missed that part of Kindergarten when they learned social skills and how to play nice with others.  But this morning it hit me:  They're silent.  Silent.  As in: If you can't be kind, be silent.

Maybe they're purposely silent because they can't be nice to me.  Maybe they're better at following my rule than I am.


Well.  I rolled that idea around in my head for a while, and let me tell you, I didn't like that at all.  First, how could they not like me?  I'm pretty awesome.  And secondly, how could they actually be better at my kind vs. silent rule than me?!  I made the rule, so I should be inherently good at it.  And thirdly (and most importantly, because the third point is ALWAYS the most important)....if they ARE being silent in lieu of being unkind.....and if that was making me feel so uncomfortable and upset.....then is that really a rule I want to have in my classroom - or in my life?!!!

I'm sure you're wondering how I respond to this silent treatment.  I wish I could say that I respond like a grown up (because I AM a grown up....) and that I simply move on (because, after all, being silent is better than being unkind).

But that would be a lie.

I can't handle cold silence, so I fill it....with obnoxious, happy chatter.  I reply to their silence with chipper, perky excitement, and I just pretend that they're happy about it and eagerly awaiting the next time we get to hang out together.  (What's more grown up than that?!)


Meanwhile, on bus duty....

One of my former students (she's an 8th grader now) stopped me yesterday as she was getting on the bus.  "I have to tell you this story," she said.

(This is why I go out to the buses every afternoon.  It's not "required" duty. so to speak, but it makes the afternoon bus lane safer to have a teacher out there, and it means that I get to see some of my former students...and sometimes they stop to tell me awesome stories like this one.)

"We were reading this book with Mrs. Griffen and she said, 'Mrs. Yeagle taught you this word last year, remember? It starts with an 'F'....' Well, the word was foreshadowing, Mrs. Yeagle, but Kaden said, 'Fake it til you make it!' instead!"

We both had a good laugh over that one, and as I waved goodbye to her I felt pretty good.  Sure, he hadn't remembered foreshadowing, but he had remembered the life lesson I'd instilled in the class:  Fake it til you make it.  And really, what's more important, life lessons or literary terms?  (Don't answer that.....)

Fake it til you make it becomes our mantra in 6th grade right around this time every year.  Hormones are raging wild and no one wants to be nice to anyone else.  The rowdy boys don't want to go to specials, the girls don't want to sit next to each other, and no one has anything encouraging to say to anyone.  It's ugly.  But, we fake it til we make it.  No one has to know that we hate PE or music class, and no one needs to know that we secretly wish that the girl next to us would be sick for a week so we had a break from her - we just have to paste a fake smile on, act with more positivity and enthusiasm than ever before, and pretend to enjoy everything.  And it works.  They get kicked out of music less, enjoy PE again, and forget to be snotty to each other because they're all too focused on faking their way to niceness.


So flash back to this conundrum about my kind/silent rule and it's possible implementation on me.

I'm not a "kind or silent" type person.  Turns out I'm actually more of a "kind....or obnoxiously kind" type person.  And while I don't think I can actually make my classroom rule ("Be Kind....and if you can't be kind, be obnoxiously kind") I DO think that I need to change my rule to something a little more reasonable for us all - and to something that doesn't encourage my students to be silent and rude to each other.  So, new rule:  "Be Kind.  And if you can't be kind, fake it til you make it."  I much prefer the idea of my classroom being full of kids being overly (and possibly fake...) peppy than kids sitting in silence and ignoring one another.  And ultimately, the happier they pretend to be, the happier they will eventually become because it's nearly impossible to fake happiness and not start feeling just a little bit of real happiness as a side effect.

Maybe we all need to remember to fake it til we make it.  We could fake our way into a happier day every day!

At least be sure to fake it with me because the whole silent thing totally stresses me out....

Back to School Jitters

It's back to school time.

One of my college sorority sisters in Kentucky (hi Steph!) sent her little peanut off to her first day of Kindergarten earlier this week.  Another sorority sister in Florida (Hi Trisha!) sent her baby girl to Kindergarten, too.  And my best friend's oldest sister (Hi Jessica!) in Nebraska sent her two oldest boys to school just yesterday.

Yes, Facebook has confirmed what Target has been telling me for weeks: it is officially back to school time, no matter what part of the nation you live in!!! But I didn't need Facebook or Target to tell me that because I'm a teacher, and we've had that "back to school" feeling since July.

For everyone else, the Back to School Jitters settle in somewhere around mid-August when it's absolutely do or die time for school supply shopping (we were out yesterday and let me just say good luck finding a 3-subject notebook on the shelves!) and the excitement of class lists starts bustling through the neighborhood (our class lists go up today!).  Parents and students alike start feeling that nervous feeling about a new school year because, let's face it, new school years mean LOTS of new questions and procedures.  The kids start to wonder if their new teachers will like them, while the parents start wondering if the new teachers are going to give out as much homework as the old teachers.  The kids wonder what new books they'll read and how much cursive they'll have to write, how much computer time they'll get and what day library check out will be.  Parents begin fretting over the costs of school registration and setting up parent-teacher conferences and what if the new teachers don't call home as much - or worse, what if they call home TOO MUCH???  And what if the new teacher doesn't let kids have water bottles in class or doesn't take bathroom breaks or what if MY BEST FRIEND ISN'T IN MY CLASS THIS YEAR???!!!!!

Yes, there are plenty of things to panic about.

And now, I'm going to let everyone in on a huge secret, one that will probably break the sacred code of teachers.....

Teachers worry about all those things, too.

Seriously, I just got the LAST class of kids conditioned!  They laughed at all my jokes, knew when they should sit down and be quiet, had finally stopped asking what time lunch was, and recognized both the joke and the truth in our class motto: It's all about Mrs. Yeagle.  They "got" me.

What if the new class doesn't like me? What if they don't think I'm funny?  What if they can't read my cursive?  What if the new parents want me to call home more often - or worse, what if they want me to call home LESS???  What day will library check out be and what if I forget to have the kids change into their PE shoes and what if I run out of slots for parent-teacher conferences and what if MY BEST FRIEND DOESN'T HAVE LUNCH WITH ME THIS YEAR????!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, friends, teachers also get the Back To School Jitters.  Big time.

As for the student-parent jitters, it's OK.  I have read some recent posts about how difficult it is for parents to hand their kids over to someone else for 8 hours a day - especially those first timers, sending their first babies off to the big, wild world of Kindergarten.  I feel for you - I'm sending my shy, gentle-natured Charlie off to Kindergarten this year, and I'm worried.  He gets scared in new situations and doesn't always make friends easily.  He doesn't like loud noises (even though he is the loudest one in the house!) and he can take 90 minutes to eat one piece of toast and a yogurt tube, so this 15 minute lunch thing is not going to work out....

But it'll be alright, because I know the kind of person I'm sending him to and I know she'll take care of him.  It'll break my heart when I have to read the email that he cried for 20 minutes on the letter rug during center time, but even getting that email will mean one very important thing: his teacher noticed he was crying and did something about it because she cares for him, too.

And this is important for us all to remember: your child's teacher may not be you, but your child's teacher cares for him and will always have his best interest in mind.

Teachers aren't perfect, and I guarantee that I'll mess up at least once this school year.....ok, at least 50,000 times.....but we DO care and we DO try our best to help your children succeed.   So let me calm your fears:

I'll be there when your baby comes in after recess crying because the other girls were mean to her, and I'll hug her tight and remind her that she's wonderful inside and out and that she can't let other people make her feel like she's any less than that.  And I'll be there when your buddy fails his math test because he doesn't understand fractions, and I'll remind him that I myself have failed a math test or two and that I turned out OK and I'll walk him next door to set up a one-on-one tutoring time with the math teacher.  And I'll be there to preview your child's library books (too easy....too hard...too mature...hey, did you get this from the junior high side of the library?!...) and to help him pack his bookbag so he's not late for the bus and to celebrate with her after winning first chair in the band challenge.  AND I'll be there to see them holding hands on the playground.....and I'll be the one to remind them that holding hands is PDA, and we don't do that at school.

And tell your kids it'll be OK, too.  Yes, they'll have to write in cursive, but Mrs. Yeagle isn't some sort of handwriting Nazi, so we will make it work.  We'll have some extra computer time, but not much, and library check out will probably be on Friday.  Water bottles are allowed at your lockers only, bathroom breaks happen after PE and lunch, and if your best friend isn't in your class, it will still be OK....I promise.

School is stressful for everyone, but if we all work together we can make it through. Let's make the deal that I won't judge you when your child's assignment book comes back to class unsigned a time or two, and you won't judge me when you see me in the grocery store check-out line with my bottle of wine and bag of Oreos....

The new school year is starting - sooner than I think we'd all like - but hopefully your Back to School Jitters have calmed.

Now, can somebody PLEASE calm mine down??!!!

Less IS More

School's starting in a few weeks.

There.  I said it.  School is starting, and summer is slipping away a lot faster than I'd like to admit. 

I made a short stop in my classroom yesterday, just to drop off some boxes of things that had accumulated in my house since May, and as I looked around the semi-empty classroom I started feeling pretty overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done before August 18: nametags, seating charts, locker tags, posters reattached to the walls, safety maps and rules posted, last year's vocab words removed from the word wall, my parent brochure and website updated.....  Sometimes it gets to be too much!

Kind of like those darn My Little Ponies....it's just too much!

Somewhere along the lines, education turned away from the idea of teaching something for mastery and instead began focusing on teaching for exposure - kind of like buying 35 My Little Ponies instead of really enjoying 1 or 2.  So, instead of teaching a few skills all year long until the students can practically complete those tasks in their sleep, we started skimming through things: teaching many, many skills in the course of a year and never actually stopping to consider if the students actually mastered any of them.

I'm definitely guilty of this.  It's so easy to look at a novel or a chapter in the textbook and think about all the millions of activities we could do instead of considering which activities would be best suited to the topics or novel at hand.  Even this summer as I sat down to tweak my Reading curriculum and create a new Language Arts curriculum, things began ballooning wildly out of control until my yearly overview looked more like I was teaching for 12 hours a day instead of just 7. 

Less IS more.  So, I've gone back to my curricula to consider where I could pare things down and teach for mastery instead of exposure.  A few less new texts, a few less huge writing projects, a lot more time for student mastery.  Less is more.

I'm also guilty of saying, "You did this last year, so you don't need me to reteach it, and we'll just breeze over it..."  It's easy to do, and easy to assume that a topic covered in a previous year is already mastered.  But if I just admitted to teaching for exposure rather than mastery.....chances are pretty good that my colleagues are doing the same.  And it's no one's fault - we've been conditioned to believe that we must teach every standard every day, and this means that we are often frantically throwing more and more skills into a single project, leaving little room for mastery of one skill, let alone 10.  And this idea that they're experts because they passed the previous year just makes for trouble...

Yesterday I sliced open a peach that we had picked off the tree in our yard.  I started by peeling the skin off - my kids hate the fuzzy texture - and then started shearing off some of the juicy flesh.  (The pit had a large crack in it, so I wasn't going to just cut it down the middle and separate it like I normally would.)  At first, everything was fine.  I shaved off a few more slivers of yellow peach, just dropping them right into the bowl, when suddenly a long black earwig came wriggling out of the pit.  I gasped - because seriously, earwigs are disgusting - and barely had time to inhale before ANOTHER EARWIG game sliding out of the pit.  AND THEN ANOTHER.

Cue the hyperventilating.

It's not like I'm scared of earwigs.  They can't really hurt me.  But dang there were just so many of them!!!  So, there I am carrying this bowl full of peaches and earwigs to the kitchen sink, screaming, whimpering, gasping...and of course LAUGHING because it's so ridiculous to be completely losing my mind over a few earwigs.  That peach pit was like a clown car - it seemed that with every step I took another earwig was squirming his way out of it to see what the commotion was about.

Thank God for garbage disposals is all I can say.

Anyway, that disgusting clown-car of a peach pit is kind of like what happens in my classroom when I say (either out loud or in my head), "You did this last year, so we won't spend much time on it..."  The small issues and skill gaps start pouring out, and soon I'm covered in itchy little pests that all need my attention before we can move on.  (And the missing skills are way harder to take care of than a bunch of slimy earwigs!)

Less is more, and taking the time to teach for mastery - and to check for prior knowledge before jumping into something! - is going to make my school year a lot better off.  For instance, I'm spending the first 4-5 weeks of my Language curriculum working on complete sentences and summary writing.  You're probably saying, "But Karisa, you each SIXTH grade.  Surely you don't need to review complete sentences and summarizing??"

Remember that peach pit full of earwigs? 

The past few years I thought the same thing: a quick review of complete sentences, a glance at summaries, and we'd be good to go, ready to move onto higher level skills and major essay construction.  And then there I was in mid-November backtracking to review those very same ideas that I had assumed the kids already had mastered.  Not this year, friends. 

Aesop was pretty wise when he wrote that story about the tortoise and the hare: slow and steady will win the race, and starting the year off with a gentle but in-depth review of some basic skills might slow me down, but will surely save me time and headache in the end.

So, yes, school is starting in a few weeks.  Two, if you want to put a REAL numerical value to it. 

But, I'm actually kind of excited about it.  It's a new school year where I can start off fresh and make changes and try new things.  And this year I have very big new things to try - like my two new mantras:

Less IS more.

Slow and steady.

New school year?  I got this.  

Peach pit full of earwigs?  We're going to  need some help....

Hello, my name is Karisa...and I have an addiction.

I have an addiction.  An addiction to My Little Ponies.

Maybe it's their cute little twinkly eyes, or their wonderfully brushable hair, or those adorable little "cutie marks" on their hips.  Whatever it is that makes me so addicted to these little rainbow colored forms of molded plastic, I can't kick the habit.  Even as an adult, walking through the pony aisle at the toy store is a dangerous thing for me:


MLP Addict Karisa: Look at this one! It's from that Super Hero Pony episode!

Mature Adult Karisa: Yes, yes she is.

MLP Addict Karisa:  She's the bad guy! And!!!! Look at Spike!  He's SOOOOO little and cute...with a super hero mask!!!

Mature Adult Karisa: He is awfully cute.....but NO! We don't need him....

MLP Addict Karisa:  SHE'S ON CLEARANCE!!!!  50% off!

Mature Adult Karisa:  But we have literally a hundred ponies already......  What?!  CLEARANCE??!!!




After spending a few days at my mom's house sorting through my worldly possessions and deciding what childhood memorabilia made the cut to transition to my own home, it's finally started to sink in just how many My Little Ponies I have accumulated over the years.  It's no joke that my room as a kid (and even into my teen years, if I'm being honest...) looked a lot like this:

Ponies on top of ponies, baby ponies and glittery ponies and rainbow ponies and sea ponies and boy ponies and ponies with braids and hats and rhinestones for eyes....  After years at college, the ponies had been delegated to a large blue Rubbermaid tub (and when I say large, I mean LARGE...like the size normal people store winter coats in), and when it was time to trek home from our time at my mom's, we threw them into a bag (a MLP duffle bag....) to bring them back home so Ollie could play with them.

Not all of them fit into the duffle bag.  And the giant pony stable, the hat boutique, the perfume spa, the ice cream shop shoe....these certainly didn't fit either.  Which means there is a huge bag of MLP at my house...and probably 20 more still at my mom's, sitting in the giant blue Rubbermaid along with all of the play sets just waiting for the next trip North so they can be reunited with their MLP friends.

Why couldn't I just give them away you ask? After living 10+ years without these little plastic beauties, why do I need them back?  Because I am a My Little Pony addict, remember?

And it must be genetic because Ollie has it too.

On the three hour drive home, Mature Adult Karisa had time to consider some things, and it occurred to her that we definitely have NO room at our home for a collection of retro ponies, even if they are adorable and glittery.  (Score one for Mature Adult Karisa.)  So when we arrived, I set Ollie to the task of sorting through the ponies to decide which ones she wanted to keep and which ones she knew she wouldn't play with.

She found TWO to give away.

TWO.

Out of probably 35 ponies, she could only part with TWO.  And why?

Because we are MLP junkies, that's why.  Completely, totally addicted, just waiting for our next fix whether it's in the toy aisle at Target or the basement of Nonnie's house...WE NEED PONIES!!!!  MORE PONIES!!!!  ALL THE PONIES!!!!


......Oh. .....My.   .......Gosh.



This week, we went (sans kids) to a Cubs game at Wrigley, my husband's first trip to The Friendly Confines.  Taking the hubs to the game got me thinking about my own trips to Wrigley - the night game during the homerun race between Sosa and McGuire when I missed Sosa's homerun because I was at the concession stand getting a pretzel... the game when we got the Cracker Jack hat at the give away tent... the time we stood outside the players' entrance and got our hats signed by some rookie (who turned out to be pretty unimportant in terms of baseball but made for a great memory)... the time the bird pooped on my head and my friend, Mark, called me "Poopy Head" for the entire rest of the day...

And then I started thinking about the ponies.

That purple one, that unicorn with the yellow hair.....why was she important again?  The glittery one with the rocket on her hip....what was so special about her?  That flutter pony with the bright yellow (and tangled) hair....the one I ruined in the bathtub....why did I keep her all these years?

Out of the probably 35 ponies, could I remember a significant detail about any of them?

Not really.

And as I look around at my own house right now, I'm starting to realize something.  Of all these toys the kids have - the dolls and ponies and dragons and hot wheels and DVDs and puzzles - what kinds of memories have we been making?  Will they look back at their piles of things twenty years from now and feel like me......overwhelmed......nostalgic.....and slightly guilty about not wanting to keep everything my parents so kindly bought for me in my youth?

Spending time in the gridlock traffic after the Cubs game (which they won 12-1, btw...), Jonathan and I started talking about all the things that we still wanted to do: see the Grand Canyon, take the kids to Wrigley, visit both oceans, own a giant, furry dog named Captain Frederick Pabst (who, Jonathan claims, will probably eat the cat...), spend a week at Disney World...

There are so many things that we want to do, so many memories that we want to make, and my addiction to small plastic ponies (and his addiction to random DVDs!) isn't helping us get there.  No matter how cute they are and how fun they seem on Christmas morning or after a long morning grocery shopping, tiny trinkets aren't making lasting memories that any of us will look back on fondly.  ("Oh hey!!Remember when you bought me this Hot Wheels car?  It must have been Saturday July 23 and we were shopping for groceries at Meijer... Man, mom, that was an AWESOME day....")

So, I'm sorry, My Little Pony.  Our days together are over.  Instead of dropping another $8.50 on some fantastic rainbow-colored pony pack, I'm going to sock that cash away and save it for something more memorable.

The kids and I discussed it, and they're on board for less toys and more trips.....at least, they say that today, with Christmas morning a solid 5 months away!  But I'm really hoping that we can all subscribe to the idea that less is more - less toys, less movies, less stuff....and more time (and space!) to enjoy the things that are really important.

Like Sunny riding on a giant furry dog named Captain Frederick Pabst as he chases poor Tug all through the house....

Twice Baked Pie, Socrates, and Ice Cream

So, I invented something last week.  Something new, something innovative, something no one else has ever tried before.

How do I know it's never been tried before?

Because I searched for it on Pinterest and nothing existed, so clearly, it's never been done before!

What IS this incredible new invention?

Twice Baked Pie.

They make twice baked potatoes, and twice baked fries, so why not twice baked pie??!

Many, many reasons why not twice baked pie.....

In my head, twice baked pie was going to be a genius way to use my slightly too soupy Bumbleberry Crumble-Thing that I had frozen so it wouldn't spoil while we were on vacation.  In my head, this twice baked pie would be superior to ALL pies because it would have TWICE the crust, some of it even INSIDE the gooey center of the pie, acting like little surprise crunch bombs in your mouth as you ate it.  In my head, this all made perfect sense, so I went along with my half-baked plan for twice baked pie.  I threw together a crust (the no-roll kind from my Grandma Fluegel, because who has the time or counter space to roll pie crust?), mixed up the old (now thawed) pie, tossed it in the shell, slid it into the oven, and waited for this genius invention to come to fruition.

...Let's just say that you won't be seeing my recipe for Twice Baked Bumbleberry Pie on Pinterest any time soon.

Earlier this spring, I was pretty sure that I'd invented something else new, something innovative, something no one else had ever tried before.

I called it.....

Discussion Based Reading Class!!!  (cue Medieval Fanfare...)

Discussion Based Reading Class was developed on the same idea that the rest of reading class was centered around: We do whatever makes Mrs. Yeagle happy (right 2015-16 6th graders??), and what makes Mrs. Yeagle happy is when we get to talk about what we are reading instead of having a giant group read-aloud time where no one pays attention.

Don't get me wrong, I used to teach reading that way - we'd all find comfy places around the room (or sit in our desks if Mean Mrs. Yeagle was there that day...), pull out our novels, and read 5-10 pages together, sometimes playing popcorn, sometimes reading entire pages before passing the read-aloud baton, and sometimes the class would just sit and listen while I amazed them with my theatrical read aloud skills.  This was all well and good, and I justified it that the kids DID need to work on their fluency.....but I was never quite satisfied with it for several reasons...

It did no justice for my advanced reading kids who were forced to sit and follow along as their slower-reading peers stumbled through a novel that was maybe just a reading level a touch too high.

It did no justice for my struggling readers who probably spent the class living in fear that their friend may call on them to read and they'd have to stumble over pronouncing "Hermione Granger" one more time.

It certainly did no justice for my desire to teach the kids deeper thinking skills - how could I foster deep conversation about the book when we were barely getting the book read?!

And it definitely did no justice for my daily teaching which was minimal if I wanted to actually finish the novel.  Simply put, reading a novel aloud in class left ZERO time for discussion about what made the novel great: themes, style, word choice, plot points....  We were doing good just to read 10 pages in class and complete the novel before we all forgot chapter 1.

And then it happened.

We were running short on time, as we always were because we spent all of our spare class time plugging through the novel, and in a moment of craziness, I assigned the students to read the last two chapters of The Lightning Thief on their own as homework.  It was a wild, dangerous assignment, and I knew that only half the kids would actually finish, but I had to take the risk because, darn it, we were going to finish this book before spring break if it killed us!  The kids returned to class the next day, some of them armed with the ending of the book, some of them armed with the ending of the movie (which of course is nothing like the book), and some of them armed with....well, nothing, because they'd watched YouTube all night instead of reading the book.

But as we sat down together and I began the class with, "So, how about that ending?!" and a handful of students' eyes got wide and they all started excitedly talking about the betrayal of the main character, I knew that the wild act of assigning the reading had been a good one.  Heads were turning as the non-readers listened to the readers explain what had happened and soon a handful of them had snuck their books under their desks and were trying to read the last two chapters they'd skipped.

That day we talked about themes of the novel, plot twists, tone and mood.  We reviewed connotation and denotation and looked for foreshadowing that should have tipped us off about who the betrayal was coming from.  We considered the name of the kids sword and why Rick Riordan may have chosen that name - what IS the deeper meaning of a sword called "Backbiter"?  We had a deep discussion about the last two chapters of the novel, and we hit on all of the CCSS Reading Literary standards while we did it.

As the kids frantically packed up that day - because of course we had lost track of time and the other classes were already waiting for us in the hall - I announced, "Guys, I had SO MUCH FUN today!"  And most of the kids agreed:  "Me too!"  "That was awesome!"  "I never thought about the book that way!"  "Can we do this again?!"

And this crazy idea of Discussion Based Reading was born.  I spent my spring break working on guiding discussion questions for The Westing Game, dividing the book into reasonably sized chunks to read, and considering grading and comprehension assignments.  It was going to be the best thing ever.

And - unlike twice baked pie - it was!  It is!  Discussion Based Reading is so fun, thought-provoking, and a way better use of my time than taking turns reading aloud!  Moving my class in this direction is maybe the best thing I have ever done.

And then it occurred to me that I'd really just hijacked Socrates' concept of student-led discussions and my new "invention" of Discussion Based Reading was really the Socratic Seminar/Circle Method.  (Thanks Pinterest!)

Regardless of who invented it, this is the approach that I've decided to take with all of my novels this year.  I'm going to take the first 6-7 weeks of school and do a lot of direct instruction - front loading all the material the kids are going to need to know and use as we do Socratic Seminars for the novels.  After we learn the basics - definitions of theme, foreshadowing, connotation/denotation, plot maps... - we will be able to apply that knowledge to our novels all year as we read (independently at home) and discuss them during class.

Of course, I'm not seeing the world through rose-colored glasses: I know that not every student is going to read.  And how can I help my struggling readers muddle through a text that is still too complicated for them?  I struggled with both of these issues when I first decided to plunge into this independent reading-class discussion format.  I decided to commit myself to giving them 10-15 minutes of class time a day to read the assigned pages, and I agreed to let them do this in whatever way they liked best.  This meant that I had some kids reading independently, hiding under their desks so no one could pester them.  I had some kids reading with a buddy, and some kids reading in trios.  I had a small group reading with me ("Please Mrs. Yeagle, you read it best! Read it TO us!", and I had some students tuned into my YouTube channel listening to the day's reading there.  Giving them time to read during class meant that even if they didn't finish, they were far enough into the reading that they wanted to finish it, and offering so many ways to complete the reading helped me differentiate and reach the many types of learners I had in my classroom.  Did some of them still not read?  Absolutely - this isn't a fairy tale world, after all! But the majority of students did, and that's a win in my book.

At any rate, some inventions don't work out - like twice baked pie.  But some inventions (that turn out not really to be inventions at all...) DO work out.  The most important thing here is that we are never afraid to try something new, even if it may turn out to be the most terrifying, bone dry piece of pie anyone has ever consumed.  Trying new things and testing the waters is never a bad thing, and happily, bad pie and bad school days can both be solved by the same thing: a healthy dose of ice cream!

(For more info on Socratic Method in classrooms, try this article from Scholastic !)

And I'm back!

It sure has been a while.  Actually, my Timehop app on my phone informed me that it was a year ago last week when I bit the bullet and started this lovely blog here, and now so here we are...

Let's all excuse my almost year-long hiatus and chalk it up to a crazy hard school year filled with ups and downs, trials and tribulations, and victories large and small.  And now it's ended....I'm mostly rejuvenated, and although I did go totally crazy and start graduate school, I think I'm doing alright!

Rather than go back and recap everything from the last 11 months, let's jump in to the thing that inspired me to post this morning at all:

My awesome new bulletin board.

I've been toying with the idea of teaching a Harry Potter book for some time now, and I actually tried ending the school year with the first one (The Sorcerer's Stone) which admittedly is not my favorite of the series.  It starts a little slow (and why shouldn't it? Rowling is creating an entirely new world for us and introducing us to a million awesome characters - it should be a little uneventful in those first few chapters!), and it was hard to get the 6th graders swooped up in the excitement of it all.  Needless to say, I felt a little bummed that maybe I'd never be able to teach a HP novel - because if you don't start with the first book, how to do read the second or third without being totally lost??!

Enter grad school, the hero of this short story.  As a final project for my first class, I had to write a short project that would teach character values in my classroom.  I decided to take the approach of teaching about heroes - in real life and fiction - and have them apply that to their own lives.  And that's when it hit me: not only should my entire Reading curriculum be based on heroes in history and literature, but as an ending to this unit and a beginning to my first novel we could watch the first Harry Potter movie and analyze the characters to see who is a hero and who is not....and by watching the movie, we could easily read the 2nd book as our novel study!!!

And that's how this idea was born.

So now, after a short discussion about heroes (and a reprise of the super hero project I did last year!), we will be delving into the magical world of Hogwarts.  And if we're doing that, we need an awesome bulletin board to set the tone, right? 

At first I thought it'd be kind of funny to use the first movie poster and paste my own head on top of Harry Potter's...but seeing as I want the kids to take this seriously, that seemed counter productive.  But I do make a pretty good Harry, don't you think?

Anyway, I went with Option 2: Hogwarts.  Thinking I'd take the easy way out and buy a party backdrop, but I couldn't find any online! I guess the HP craze is dwindling out some?  (SAD!)  So I found this poster from the last movie and decided to base my idea off of that:

Of course, I didn't need my Hogwarts to be on fire, so I used some other pictures to help me create an in-tact Hogwarts.  my poster started like this:

 Nothing to write home about, right?  I just needed a basic silhouette of the castle.  Initially I thought I'd put it on black poster board, but thankfully my kids refused to go to Dollar General with me that day, so I was forced to use the white board I had here...and let them finger paint it.  It actually turned out pretty great!  We used blue, purple, and black, and it kept them busy for at least 10 minutes, so that's a win for me.  I added to the fun by having them paint some paper I could use for mountains: mom and teacher win.

 Next step, put the castle on the background and apply the mountainy paper and letters that I cut out (by hand, mind you!) from my printer.  If only I'd downloaded that snazzy cut everything program for my Cricut before the Provo company got all uppity and banned it....alas, I didn't and thus had to put in some extra man hours.  but they look pretty good, and the jaggedy edges might make them look more Potterish than smooth ones would have.  (That's what I'm telling myself at least!)

 Turned out the mountains were tooo bright, so a coat of black helped that, and I added the tag line, "The Magic Starts Here" to get the kids excited.  And let's face it, my classroom is pretty magical.  I'm like Professor McGonnagal only shorter.  And without the ability to turn into a cat.  (Or can I???)

I did cut the white letters with my Cricut, even though it meant I couldn't use the cool Lumos font I downloaded.  This worked out WAY better.  And then came the stressful part...adding the shading.  I used crayon and added a few things here and there....and happily when it was all over, I managed not to screw it up!  Now I just have to laminate it.....which I'm super nervous about because I ALWAYS mess things up with I laminate them.  That's a class all teachers need in college: Laminating 101.  Some day when I'm a college prof, that will be part of my curriculum.

So there she is, one more time, in all her glory:

I'm going to use the same poster every year and hang it on my door.  Next in the series is the bulletin board for when I'm teaching Bomb by Steve Sheinkin.  The tag line?  "Mrs. Yeagle's Class is the BOMB" with a little mushroom cloud.  I can't wait.

Modify!!

WARNING: For any of you non-teacher readers out there, this may be a pretty boring post.  It promises no pictures, no funny stories, and not much entertainment value, except for the fact that every time I hear the word "modify" I now think of Mater's Tall Tales when he becomes a drifting racer in Tokyo...but again, that's entertaining for me and not really for you, especially if you haven't seen that short.....

Anyway, as I was chatting with my teacher pal today, she was talking about her class load for the fall and how she was worried about how she would modify it all, especially since we no longer work down the hall from each other, making it pretty difficult to bounce ideas off of each other or share materials.  She asked for some help, and while I'm certainly not the end-all-be-all of special ed modifications, I do sort of have a knack for it.  And I started thinking that it might be a good idea to put all of these ideas in one spot so that I (and anyone else who's interested) can come here and glance through them in case I feel stumped one day on how to modify something.  (Tee hee...MODIFY!!)

So, in no particular order.....

1.  Page Numbers - a simple way to adapt any worksheet is simply by putting the page number behind the question.  This guides students in the right direction and prevents them from looking at a page too far ahead or too far behind.  Plus, it's super easy to do, and easy to remove later on when/if the student no longer needs it.

 2. Add A Word Bank - Another easy modification is adding a word bank for the kids to choose from.  Be nice and don't add any words in there that don't belong because having words left over in a word bank can send some kids over the edge, and you're here to help, not make them go nuts!

3.  Dividing the Page - Sometimes kids don't have a problem with the content, they have a problem with the format.  Easy fix - divide the page into smaller sub-sections.  Draw boxes around different groups of problems, leave more white space, anything that is going to segment the work into smaller areas is likely to help!

4.  Divide the page and Add a Word Bank - Split the work into smaller sections and provide a word bank for each smaller section.  This prevents the kids from feeling overwhelmed by too many words AND too many problems all in one space.  Some people may think this makes it too easy for the kids, but trust me, there are still kids who will mix up problems, even if there ARE only three words for them to choose from instead of 15.

5.  Color Coding - Sometimes adding a word bank or dividing the page requires too much cutting and pasting (whether on the computer or in real life), or you don't have an original copy/file to do it with.  Solution?  Color coding!!!  Here you can highlight three or four problems in a color, then highlight those three or four answers in the same color.  This way kids can see that the pink words are answers for the pink problems and they know only to choose from those options.  Fast, easy, and effective, especially for kids who are drawn to color or are easily distracted from the boring black and white page.

6. Colored Pencil - Speaking of boring black and white.....ever try colored pencil to keep the kids on track?  Either by allowing them to use colored pencil to write the answers or by using the colored pencil to underline important words in the directions, some kids LOVE colored things and will pay way more attention to them than boring black and white.  I don't blame them....and I bet right about now you wish I would use colored text too!  It's also a great way to get kids to do math problems if they are forgetting to carry or add/borrow.  Have them write the numbers in different colors and do the first step in one color and the second step in another!

7.  Sentence Starters - Sometimes students struggle with writing prompts because they aren't sure where to start their sentences.  Enter the pre-made sentence starters!  Format a page specifically for your students who need more assistance with their writing and make it more of a guided format with sentence starters and lead-ins. 

8. Make it Cut and Paste - This works for lots of things:  I've made writing sections on a test cut and paste, review worksheets, even fill in the blanks.  Kids love cutting.  Kids love pasting.  And sometimes the tactile sensation of doing the cutting and pasting helps kids focus.  Try making a Venn diagram cut and paste for your strugglers!  The hardest part is knowing what phrases you used in class and getting those written out so the kids are familiar with the phrases they're using.  But it's way fun and a lot simpler for them than having to recall all of the info themselves.  The students still have to recall the details, but now they only have to recall the topic it talks about instead of the actual phrase to write down. 

9.  Either Ors - This modification sometimes works super well and sometimes it's more confusing than the regular way, but it's worth a try anyway.  At the end of the fill in the blank, offer two choices (an either or!) and the student just has to circle the word or phrase that fits in the blank.  He still has to know the answer, but doesn't have to write it, which sometimes is all it takes for the kid to not mind working a little!

10. Multiple Choice - Another easy modification - turn any worksheet into multiple choice.  Not too many choices, but maybe three, so they have to consider the possibilities but can still find their correct answer.  If a kid has a chance to narrow it down from a huge list of possibilities in the text to only three or four, it can help a great deal.

Of course providing highlighted texts for students is always a good place to start too.  This list just sort of assumes that you've got that one covered already.

Now this is by no means the end, but let's face it, I've been up since 5, did a workout DVD, took a 2 mile walk, chased after the kids, survived a no-rest quiet rest time, did a short ab workout, peeled 10 more pounds of peaches....and basically am ready to call it a day!  So be on the look out for 10 or so more modifications as time goes on and as they pop into my brain.

But, before I go...here's a good option for differentiating, even if it isn't modifying exactly:  At the end of a lesson, ask the students to put their heads down and cover their eyes, then ask for a "vote"  as I always called it.  (explain the choices first so they know what to expect)  Ask them to raise their hand if they feel nervous or uncertain about the lesson.  Then ask those who feel pretty ok about the lesson to raise their hands.  Then ask those who felt the lesson was easy and are really comfortable with it to raise their hands.  (I normally things like "raise your hand if today's lesson scared the boogers out of you" - third graders loved that sort of thing....but I may need to MODIFY (tee heehee) for 6th grade!! - or "raise your hand if today's lesson was super easy and you can't believe I had to teach it")  This gives me a chance to assess if I need to reteach the whole thing the next day or if just a few kids are struggling.  Normally I have three worksheets ready (mainly in math) one for the strugglers (that we'll most likely start together in a small group), one for the middle of the road kids (that they'll do on their own or with a buddy if I'm feeling nice), and one for the advanced kids (one that isn't just MORE work, but stuff that makes them think or need to APPLY the skill we learned).  As they raise their hands to let me know how they feel about it, I distribute worksheets accordingly.  Since their heads are down, no one knows which worksheet is the "easy" and which is the "hard" and no one can laugh or be mad.  And I can also gently say to the kid "I think you should try the harder one today, you did really well in class" or "let's start off slower today with the easier work."  It really helps the kids feel like I'm paying attention to their needs and the parents LOVE that their kid is getting work specially for them.

Now....to give in to these pre-school stress eating attacks or to stand strong and just go to bed.....that IS a tough question.....