Bailey's Corner

Was very shocked to receive this letter from a student at my school who is in my National Junior Honor Society and who was in one of my virtual courses last summer. I need to hang this up and read it when I am feeling overwhelmed. One of our Encore teachers assigns students to write a letter of gratitude to a teacher around this time of the year every year. She brought me a short and sweet letter last week, then came back with this one.  This is why I teach!

I put this study guide together yesterday for my virtual students and thought I'd share. Want the foldable version? You can find it on my TPT store . 8.EE.1

About a year ago I decided to check out Teachers Pay Teachers. I started posting foldables I created for my students' interactive notebooks and they immediately started selling. It has been a great source of extra income for me. You can get started by signing up for your free account . I upgraded after about a month so that more of the profits belonged to me. :)

Do you dojo? I discovered Classdojo late last year and used it a little bit with my 8th graders. This year I started the year with it, and it has been awesome! The majority of my parents are connected and get real time access to what is going on in my classroom. I am easily able to communicate using the messenger component and parents can see points their student is receiving for positive and negative behaviors. I have also used messenger to communicate with parents about how to work out homework problems, it's great! At the end of each week the student who has earned (and kept!) the most points is declared the weekly winner. On Mondays I reset the points and allow students to cash out. They can purchase items from my prize store with their points. I keep a tally logged so that they only lose the points that they spend. They really enjoy this and look forward to Mondays. :)

My 6th graders are so much fun! They like to make up hashtags about what we're learning in class. In the early fall one of them starting writing #lalnbaileys to mean "learning a lot" in Bailey's class on the board and it stuck. Yes, I know it could also mean "learning a little" in Bailey's but I don't think they've realized it yet. :) 

My students LOVE bouncy bands! I read something about them on Facebook last summer and decided to try to get some using donor's choose. One week later, boom! Class set on its way. :) I use tennis balls to reduce noise and they doubled their use with keeping the bands on the desks. I teach 6th-8th grade and they all enjoy them. Awesome investment! They are a little less than $10 on the bouncy band website and $12.95 on amazon . You can receive funding through Donor's Choose if you use amazon. I was also thoroughly impressed with the owner Scott when he sent me replacement bands for the ones that didn't quite make it. Great person to work with! :)