Week 17

Second to last week of teaching! I cannot believe it has gone by so fast!

This week was definitely a good week. We are looking forward to the end of the year and getting the students ready for junior high. In our weekly meeting with the principal, she said it is time to sit back and enjoy the time with the students. The relationships are what matter at this point, but still continue to teach. We have given the students a couple projects to work on and we can help them individually so the class is less structured, but they are still being assessed on "on task work" and on their projects.

This week we started something new with behavior management. We use classroom Dojo, which is excellent. This is an online tool where you can type in all the students names and then they come up as little boxes with a monster in it. Each student can gain points for on task behavior, participating, helping others, etc. They can also lose points for being off task, disrespect or other negative actions in the classroom. This system is awesome. The students love to watch their points go up, and you can put it on the smartboard so when they answer a question in class, they can go up to the board and click their name for a point. It is a great visual reminder to be doing what they should be doing.

Also this week, the students earned the Fun Friday. Mrs. Wiora brought in her Wii and they had a dance party. This was one of the funnest things I have done since being at school. I checked in their homework packets, and if they were completed they got their usual bag of chips. The last forty five minutes of Friday were spent eating chips and dancing. They loved it! The order of who got to go was determined by the amount of dojo points. The highest people got to chose a friend to dance against and we went through until the time was up.

Even though they still had a little bit of the way before earning a total fun friday, Mrs. Wiora says that sometimes it is good to give them a taste of what is to come. This way, they can know how fun it really is and work harder next week to get the rewards from doing good and responsible work.

Overall it was a fun week and now only 5 more days till graduation!