Fishbowl... or the poor teacher's "Catch Phrase"

Each day my homebase (or homeroom) has activity block. Activity block is from 11:05-12:55, which is almost 2 hours (yes, you read right). During this time, we have Channel One news, our student TV show, lunch (there's one hour), plus time for advisor/advisee activities and everyone's favorite, study hall/silent reading.

I came across this game the other day, and found it was too good to keep to myself. As a 7th grade teacher, if the kids ask to play the game again, it must be a winner!

Fishbowl:

1. Give each student 3 cards/slips of paper and instruct them to write 1 word on each paper. You can modify this for whatever you wish. My suggestion is that you use nouns as they are the easiest to describe. They should not use proper names!

2. Once they write down their 3 words - they can fold the papers and put them into a basket/container/fishbowl.

Now that you have words, you have options:

Catch Phrase - Object is to describe the word, but not say it. Set a timer for a minute. One person chooses the card and describes the word without saying it so his/her team can guess. Example, "Kentucky Fried..." "Chicken." After a minute, change teams and award 1 point per correctly identified word.

Guesstures - Object is to describe/act out the word, but not say it. In the game, the "actor" chooses 4 words to act out. That person has 1 minute to act out and/or describe all 4 words. In the game, the words disappear without warning. To add this element in, you could have a student or teacher remove 1 word every 15 seconds.

My homebase of 20 had a lot of fun with this activity! It was the perfect 25 minute activity before Channel One news. Best of all, they've asked to play it another day.

Making observations!

The blog drought is OVER! It's time to get back into the groove with a new school year and new adventures!

I really have mixed feelings about the beginning of the year. I love the newness (supplies, clothes, teachers), but I dislike the constant reminders about procedures. Spending a class period reviewing when to sharpen pencils, etc is not my idea of fun! However, it's necessary work. The more we prepare, practice, and reinforce those procedures at the beginning, the more fun my year will be in April!

As a science teacher, I really work hard to get my students to make good observations. Saying that an object is brown, isn't really good enough in my opinion. As a 7th grader, more developed observations should be made. So as a result, I've spent a lot of time going over what a good observation looks like and what a "not-so-good" observation looks like.

As a fun way to observe living things, and to escape the hot/humid classroom, we trekked outside to observe the natural environment around the school. I had my students take their composition notebooks outside (no need for clipboards with those things) and they had to be in my sight and at least an arm's length away from another person. In the future, it will definitely be more like 2 or 3 arm's lengths - I don't know how middle schoolers find each other, but they are like magnets. We made observations on a beautiful August day for about 40 minutes which was a perfect way to break up the block time!

Kiddie Lit

Since returning home from Space Camp, I've been keeping myself busy, busy, busy. Mainly with teaching Children's Literature at the University of Dubuque. I am an adjunct (which basically means a part-time teacher) professor in the education department, and it is a new challenge, which is good.

Of course, I couldn't let this class go without incorporating technology. First step is the Children's Lit wiki. I personally love wikis, and have become quite the expert at them in the past year, coordinating the Jefferson SINA wiki and my own personal electronic portfolio. Wikis are great because they are incredibly easy ways to create websites that many people can edit. Below is one of my favorite videos that just explains what a wiki is.

One of the limitations with wikis is that because they are simple, you don't have a lot of choices in terms of layout and other features. However, for a place to collect information, they do the job easily!

Another of my new favorites is Prezi. Prezi is an online presentation creator, kind of a powerpoint on "roids." It is interactive and allows you to add pictures, video, and graphics - plus interesting twists and turns. For teachers, an education account is available which allows use of features for free, which is great! I'm really hoping to use this with my 7th grade students this year. Check out the prezi I created for Children's Literature below... it contains all my notes for class.

UD Children's Lit 2011 on Prezi

My next big purchase is an iPad 2. The only thing that stopped me from buying one today was the fact that they weren't in stock. I cannot wait to see all of the features that will let me move forward in the classroom!

One of the topics I'm working on for class this week is children's literature and technology. Can't wait to explore this area!

Space Camp Pics!

I uploaded 800+ pics to Picasa last night.. so if you are interested in viewing more pictures of space camp, check out the embedded slide show below. I apologize for the quality of some of the pictures, as my camera died the 1st day and I relied on the iTouch camera. Not quite like a Canon. :-)

Settling in...

back to Dubuque and I've been back to school to pick up preserved critters, back to camp to deliver preserved critters, out to Peosta for a much needed/overdue haircut, and out to camp again to help with check out!

There's no place like Home

Current time: 12:02 AM (June 23).

My flight was delayed twice more, to 6:25, then to 7:00 PM. A cheer rang out through the waiting area when our gate agent confirmed that yes, our plane had in fact taken off, and was headed to Huntsville.

As a result of delays upon delays, many people shifted onto other flights... which opened up seats on the previously full plane. I was sitting in an aisle seat, so I went up to the gate agent and asked if I could get into a seat by myself. Then, I asked if I could resurrect my flight to Dubuque that I had cancelled at 10:30 AM. Rebecca, the gate goddess replied, "I don't see why not," and got me a seat on the 9:20 flight from Chicago to DBQ. She then created a new baggage tag and proceeded to walk it out to the tarmac to reattach to my bag. God bless her - seriously... she had been at the airport since 5 AM, was working 7 hours past her shift end, and had been yelled at by multiple angry people who were missing flights. She definitely went above and beyond (especially after another gate agent said getting my Dubuque flight back was impossible).

Finally we watched our American Eagle plane touch down in Huntsville and taxi to the gate. The crew on the plane stated, "We want to turn this plane around as fast as possible," and the crowd responded with, "How fast can the people on the plane get off?" As most of us had been waiting for hours, we were ready to head north.

Our crew member shared that the plane had suffered some major wind damage that had taken several hours to repair. Then they took off from Chicago and about halfway to Huntsville had a mechanical problem, which caused them to turn around and return to Chicago as Huntsville has no mechanics to work on the issue.

I have to say that I had one of the most beautiful flights today from Huntsville to Chicago - beautiful clouds, beautiful sunset, and smooth sailing.

Arriving in Chicago was not as smooth - they have endured a day of delays, cancellations, power outages, and weather. We sat on the tarmac after landing for about 20 minutes because our gate had a plane at it. Then we got close to the gate, but the crew wasn't there - so we waited about 20 more minutes to get connected to the jet bridge. At this point, it was 9:20 and I was absolutely convinced that I was sleeping in O'Hare and arriving on the early morning flight to Dubuque. Once we were allowed to get off the plane and I picked up my valet bag, I headed quickly up the jet bridge, where two of my space camp friends were at the desk finding out about my flight. Was it still on time? Was it delayed? Finally we found out it was delayed as well (from 9:20 to 9:40), so I jogged/walked from terminal G to terminal L. As I passed through other terminals I definitely felt lucky - there were many cots set up with people camping out waiting for flights - I was definitely hoping I wouldn't have to claim one of those places. I arrived at gate L4 to see that my plane was still boarding so I made it in the nick of time!

After a cloudy flight to Dubuque, we touched down around 10:55 PM, and to my amazement, my checked bag also made it home!

It has been an adventure - one that I am glad I don't have to repeat for awhile. I ended up canceling my children's lit class for Thursday because until 9:50 tonight I had no idea if I would in fact make it home. That's a worry for another time. Goodnight all!

Still waiting

Current time 4:04 PM - departure has changed from 3 PM, to 3:30 PM, to 5:45 PM, to likely after 6 PM. My new plan is to take the O'Hare shuttle to Rockford, stay overnight in Rockford, and have my buddy Steph pick me up and take me to Dubuque on Thursday. So I've cancelled class again - which is super disappointing/annoying. Seriously, this is getting very complicated.

Just had a huge cell move through the airport - lots of rain, thunder, and lightning. For awhile it was raining so hard, we couldn't even see the the control tower or the tarmac.