end o' year

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Home : 2002 : May : 20

end o' year
By tia

i do a few things at the end of the year to hang on to my students, but keep them learning (even if i'm not taking grades)

--i teach them "tough" stuff and let them know it's for older kids (i teach 6th). i do a short
unit on shakespeare--we look at dress, class of the day, the Globe Theatre, impact of religion on politics. we read a few of his plays written in prose. (i try to pick shows that our local shakespeare theatre will produce this summer.) and in math we did some tough work with integers (positive and negative numbers) and algebra--i was teaching them "secrets" to help in the coming years.
--when

i teach math (i didn't this year), i did many hands-on activities to extend where we were with probability.

--i have a spelling bee with all the words from the year (everyone copies them at their desk, even if they're not "up" or they are "out".)

--i have them answer surveys for me explaining--in detail--what their favorite subject was, why, least favorite, why, what they think i should do for/with the next year's class---this is oftentimes very beneficial for me to evaluate the year.

--i have them compete in groups for knowledge bowl:

math--every group has 1 minute to answer a question--questions cover measurement, concepts, vocab, geometry, basic computation, word problems.....and i keep track of points--after a couple hours (have done this for 1 hour for 2 days in a row)--the winning group receives a prize--pencils, giant paperclips, magnet for their locker...

--what about having your students right an essay or letter to the next student going to sit at his/her desk--what is some advice they will need, what will they love about this grade/class?

THE IMPORTANT THING IS TO KEEP THEM BUSY--KEEPING THE DAY IS CONSISTENT IS IMPORTANT TOO. GOOD LUCK.