spring cleaning 2: teaching stuff (old post, revisited)

I found, buried under a pile of posts waiting to be published, this little beauty from a while ago. It's funny to me to see which ideas I implemented and which I didn't.

Misc. Teaching Ideas (from Spring 2009?)

• - buy a bunch of cheap notebooks at the start of the school year (when all the school supplies go on sale) for kids who "don't have a notebook" (check--the school did this for me, actually)
• - put extra trash cans all over the room to cut down on notebook shreddings (hmm...not really feasible in a small room...but interesting. May have to try it.)
• - reading corner w/soft stuff, books, lamp, rug, etc. (not as successful as I had hoped. Still have the corner of books, but the pillows & blankies only come out once in a while.)
• - "wall of fame" for student work and "wall of shame" for found grammar errors (got the fame. Don't think my kids are adroit enough to find stuff for the shame.)
• - "writers' toolbox" with literary terms inside (tried it...turns out the literary terms I was thinking of are more for high school, not 6th grade. I do have a Writers' Toolbox bulletin boardish thing, though, with writing tips & posters about the writing process etc. Think I like that better. )
• - 6 traits posters, of course (check! they're lovely and colorful)
• - posters of "audiences" for writing--Congressman, future self, Kramer, etc. (I'm still interested to see how this would play out.)
• - big calendar with due dates (kids don't check it at all...but it's helpful for me.)
• - use grammar girl podcasts--as self-starts? (interesting. hmm.)
• - have an "out box" basket for each class's graded work (yup. easy way to sort papers...I use a big stack of plastic drawers. works fabulously.)
• - define some kind of a late work/absent policy? (HA. turns out this is tricky when you're working within a department/other teachers. It's not like the kids would listen anyway...but late work isn't a huge problem for me, fortunately--just a trickle here and there. Most of the time it's just never turned in & the kid takes a 0 on the assignment.)
• - start w/desks in rows with assigned seats. you can always loosen up from there. (I actually went back to this after 5 months of other arrangements--semicircle, tables, columns of pairs, etc. I really like the old-fashioned grid, though, especially for the 6th graders. Kids are much more focused...duh.)

P.S. I think I'm going to import my other teaching blog(s) in here. No reason not to--I like this new tagging thing (goodness, am I behind the curve or what?).