More Door Decor - Mardi Gras Style :)

I think my favorite thing is decorating my door each month. For February, I left up my "Be Cool- Read" design until mid month. Somewhere between the flu and jury duty, I found time to get into the Mardi Gras spirit. Here are a few pictures of the "Lassiz le Bon Temps Rouler with a good book" door.

This is a view of the entire door -- masks, beads, festive colors, boa looking border.

A close up of the sign.... in case you do not know,

 "laissez le bon temps rouler" means "let the good times roll."

A close up of the border... I thought the polka dot resembled Mardi Gras beads.

I also had a banner in the hall from Oriental Trading that said, "Happy Mardi Gras: WCES 5th Grade."

After enjoying a parade at school, a month of King Cake, and a two day vacation from school, it's back to the real world. Mardi Gras holiday is officially over. Today is Ash Wednesday. Lent starts today, which is a time of sacrifice. Even though I am not Catholic, I think I will be taking part in Lent. Giving up something you really want for 40 days seems like it could lead to a lot of good. Now I need to quickly decide what I will be sacrificing during Lent.

Tic-Tac- Toe

Due to the fact that we are in crunch time for the MCT2, we are only using sample test items to prepare the students for the MCT2. Well, if you know anything about 10-11 year olds, you know that going through test items for 3- 4 weeks, all day, is not an option if you care to keep their attention. This little issue has caused me to get creative. Since the kids do not want to work on sample test items, they are constantly asking to play a game. Today, they wanted to play tic-tac-toe. I immediately said, "not a chance." Then I retracted that statement. Here is a run down on how you can use something simple, like tic-tac-toe, to teach skills.

Materials:
1 poster board with a tic-tac-toe board drawn on it and then laminated (or made dry-erase)

2 dry- erase markers

sample test items

eggspert (or some other type of game show buzzer)

bracket for a double-elimination tournament

Rules:

The teacher divides the class into small groups (i divided mine into 4 groups).

The first two groups step up and are each given an egg from the eggspert and a marker.

Each group is assigned to be an X or an O.

The teacher reads the question and the first one to buzz in gets to answer the question.

Upon giving a correct answer, the team is allowed to play their X or their O (until today, I never knew how intense a game of tic- tac- toe could get).

The first team to get 3 in a row wins the round and plays the next team.

In my class, the tournament champions either get points to the store or a popcycle.

The other teams all sit around and listen to the questions and answers while the other teams play because occasionally a question will repeat itself.


I used this with reading questions, but it can be used with any subject. This has been the most engaging game (for all 53 students) that I have come up with, thus far. They love it! Who'd a thunk tic-tac-toe would be so engaging?!

Peace and Geaux Tigers : )

MCT2

If you live in Mississippi, you know what the MCT2 is (well, i guess you don't if you do not have kids in  public school). For those of you who are not aware, MCT2 (Mississippi Curriculum Test, second edition) is the state test for third through eighth grades. For teachers, it can be a pain in the rear-end. By this part of the school year, you are entirely over the letters M, C, and T. That is how I feel now. I am very tired of the state test, tired of looking at sample test items, tired of anything relating to the test. However, this is not the attitude I can show in class because I have to pump up the kids and get them ready to do their best on the test! After all, their scores reflect my teaching. Therefore, we are trying to put up posters, door decor, and order some fun t-shirts to get them motivated! 

Here are a few of our efforts to motivate the students.

This is my coworker's, Mrs. Woodside, door.

This is part of the mural that is outside of my door. There is also a basketball goal to the right. A similar drawing will be on the their May Day t-shirts!! 

Hello World : - )

After a little thinking, I decided I would start blogging again. Lately, I have been experimenting in the kitchen with some of my own recipes and I decide I needed someone to share my experiments with. I also wanted to start blogging again because I am a teacher and a children's minister and I have a lot going on that I would like to share (and then have something to look back on to remember what I did for what lesson). For example, my door decorations, bulletin board ideas, lesson ideas, and ideas for events at church that are, for example, more meaningful to kids than an Easter Egg. It may be a little boring really until next school year starts, but I will need time to practice blogging again.

Warning: I am an English teacher but I overuse commas, never remember to use capitalization, and I am a terrible speller (good thing spell check is my best friend!!).