calling all teachers (or anyone else :))

syrinx · 09-09-2008, 11:45 PM

I go to a very small school, and most of my teachers do not reward. The way I see it, we enjoy things only if they are rewarded with things like candy. But, as I have stated , where I come from they do not reward, even if a game calls for that matter. The only teacher I have that rewards, is my science teacher, and she is very strange. She calls herself "The Mean and Hateful Science Teacher" and in her class, we have people she calls "Pencil Sharpener Molesters" and "Table Molesters." And the "stupid" games I was speaking of were not the games you were talking about, but games like the "What's Your Favorite Color." Those are the games that my teachers play. Most of my teachers were once grade school teachers, so that doesn't really help much.

ELmostl · 09-10-2008, 12:53 AM

i loved candy reward games back in elementary school..=D i had a teacher that gave out those tootsie pops..yeah it was worth it learning spelling to earn one of those. =D

anyways didnt really have to do any games to introduce ourselves to the class this semester finally.

We just went around the classroom in one of our classes , said our name , and blah blah couple of lil things about us. Kinda cool.

We had one class where we were supposed to pick an animal and say how it describes us ( i was thinking of wolf) but it is a creative writing class that is only an hour long and well..we got off topic..and we have been off topic the last 3 class periods so no games lol.

allison · 09-11-2008, 08:24 PM

Today I did my annual Spetember 11 lesson. It's getting harder and harder because my students were so young when it happened. They were so interested today! THey were asking questions and particpating and totally learning... it was awesome! They were actually disappointed when I had to end the lesson for the day. They loved my patriotic outfit too ... hehehe.

allison · 09-18-2008, 11:23 PM

Rubes... how you doing?

I feel like the school weeks are flying by!!!

How's everyone else's year going so far?

FilleBelle · 09-19-2008, 02:35 PM

I love my third period. I wish the day could just stop there, so that I didn't have to deal with the disappointment of fifth, lol.

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day and my kids are doing presentations. I promised one point of extra credit (big whoop, lol) to anyone who talks like a pirate during his or her speech. Haha!!

allison · 09-19-2008, 07:05 PM

LOL ... sounds like fun! Did anyone do it???

FilleBelle · 09-19-2008, 07:24 PM

Oh, definitely. They are extra credit whores. Also, I think some of them just wanted an excuse to do something silly in class.

allison · 09-19-2008, 07:47 PM

So how did you know it was International Talk Like a Pirate Day??? LOL !

RubesMom · 09-23-2008, 06:18 PM

I've been busy, so I haven't been around here much. Things are going pretty well, except I got fed up today with one of my classes that just sit there and stare at me. I'm not sure if they understand what I'm saying or not because I get very little feedback from them. I understand that in a lot of other countries, particularly Asian ones, students do not speak in class, but they usually adapt pretty well here--they may not always be the most outgoing in class, but they will at least give some indication that they know what's going on. This, however, is ridiculous. I mean, I can ask a yes or no question and one or two people out of 15 will nod or shake their heads. Forget about asking an information question where they might actually have to speak.
I'm going to try something different on Thursday where I ask them questions and they have to just write the answers and that way I'll get a better idea of whether they have a clue what I'm saying. So today was pretty blah.

RubesMom · 10-24-2008, 10:14 AM

This thread needs to be revived, too! Again!
Well, I did something yesterday that was fun, and maybe the rest of you could adapt it to your classes. I call it Song Grab, but maybe you can come up with something better.

Prep: Choose a song and then type out individual words to the song. Include words that do not appear in the song to make it trickier. (I teach university students, so I chose Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd, and I followed up with an activity using A Boy Named Sue by Johnny Cash. Both of these songs are sung by a son who is talking about his relationship with his mother or father; however, they are totally different types of songs!)

Cut the words apart so each word appears on a different strip of paper.

Put students in groups of 3 or 4 in a circle and put the word strips in the middle of them, face up. GIve them some time to look at the words and ask questions about vocabulary if needed.
Tell them that you are going to listen to a song, and when they hear a word that is on one of the strips, they grab that piece of paper. The goal is to get the most words. They are competing with the other students in their group. At the end of the song, students get one point for each correct word they grabbed, and minus one point if they grabbed one of the words that doesn't appear in the song!
Students have fun with this. I can just imagine how much fun children would have with it!
Good luck!

allison · 10-24-2008, 07:38 PM

I do something kind of like this...

each group of 4 students get a baggie with small strips of paper. Each strip of paper has a line to a poem typed on it. Each group gets the same lines to the same poem, but they are cut apart. Then the groups create their own poem. You end up getting all different poems made out of the same lines, it's really neat.