With a new school year upon us, middle school teachers are often faced with the task of connecting to their advisory groups.  Every year is different, from the kickball champions of the world to my Harry Potter groupies, advisory groups are as diverse as the personalities that make them up.  With this understanding, here’s my favorite activity to get the year started right.
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My Grandma has a grocery story:  A name game.  Every year there are kids that don’t know each other.  So rather than saying “hey you” all year long, we play a fun game that helps everyone (including me) learn their names.  It runs like a spelling bee. 
All kids stand at their desk

Student 1 says, “My grandma has a grocery store and she sells Apples.”  (the product can be anything that starts with the letter A.
Students 2 then repeats what student 1 says, however they have to address it as “Tim’s grandma has a grocery store and she sells apples.”  Adding the previous students name and what their grandma sells.  Then student 2 would say :My grandma has a grocery store and she sells bananas.”  Or any product that starts with the letter B. 

This pattern continues, having each student name all the previous students and what their grandmas sell.  Its great fun.  You can be lenient the first time around to make sure everyone learns the previous students’ names.  Additionally, students with learning challenges may need some additional support.   After the students make it around one time, I often allow them to pick other items not in alphabetical order, this increases the complexity.  At this point if a student can’t remember a name or product they sit down like a spelling bee.   Although this game sounds simple, I am hard pressed to get through a group of 20 kids in 30 minutes, so keep good notes, this could be a multiday activity. 
 

Advisory Kickball Team Building 

As we approach the end of the year, it gets increasingly harder to hold the attention of middle school students.  Students, teachers and administrators get tired of the same behavior patterns that have been on display for the past 8 months.  Today, I would like to talk about a website you can use to reengage your classes and make the last month a good time for all.
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Classcraft is a gamification website that allows you to gamify your students experience.  From the teacher side its easy to use and administer in class.  On the student side it opens up a whole new world of game experience in the classroom.  Here’s a video introduction to the site.
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Using this system, there are several layers of points that students can earn, work with or spend.  Here’s a basic summary.

• XP Points:  These are points I give as kids complete classwork, assignments and other activities.  Its easy to assign points to either a group or individual
• HP Points:  Health Points,  kids must keep their health up of they will fall in battle (Essentially die in the game). Health points are generally lost through random actions of the game, missing questions or negative behavior consequences
• AP Points:  Action points allow the kids to use a variety powers and special privileges.  Some are collaborative powers that benefit their classmates while others are individual powers that help themselves.
• GP:  Gold Points, these allow students to buy stuff. 

How do I use it?  Each day we do a random event from Classcraft.  There are twenty events that can be used as a bell ringer.  Some are really funny.   Like having one student turn into a butterfly for a class period.  Others will benefit the whole class, or harm them.  This creates a very positive way to interact with students at the start of each class.  My students anxious await the latest event.

In addition, I do a once a week “Boss Battle.”  This is simple a quiz battle that allows the students to fight a fictitious character.   If they defeat the boss they earn points, if they miss questions, they could fall in battle.  If a students health points falls to 0, they fall in battle.  The game will randomly assign a consequence.  I customized mine so that are small task to last 4 to 5 minutes.  For example, organize my tables, clean the desktops.  Kids willing do their chores to get back into the game and after they complete their sentence, the game will play a heavenly sound as they come back to life.

Managing this is the classroom is a lot off fun.  I run the game screen on the projector in the front of my room, then use the app on my phone to monitor individual students.  For example, if a group gets a daily assignment done, I give them 100xp.  If a student is unprepared for class, he loses health points.  Any loss of points will prompt their group to decide if they want to protect him or her.

What do my kids like?  They love customizing their game characters, getting a new look or purchasing a pet.  They talk and want to show each other their characters.  I enjoy this site because it can be used as a 1 to 1 interface with kids sitting in front of computers or with a teacher computer projector to the whole class.  From a cost perspective, its free to start out.  You can purchase a monthly or a yearly subscription.  I choose the monthly subscription because I like to use it the last couple months of the year.  The real advantage here is you can subscribe and cancel at anytime.  Unlike most EdTech products who want a hundred dollar year subscription, they allow monthly billing.  In addition, it integrates with Google Classroom, so you can quickly import your classes and set up. 

What do you need to do?  Decide what behaviors you want to emphasize.  This can be accomplished through health points and rewards in either Gold points or XP points.  Look at special powers that work in your room.  For example, some students could earn a power that allows them help on a test.  Or my students favorite, hunting power, which allows them to bring food.  All these levels and activities can be customized to fit your specific needs. 

Kids love this system, they want to come to class and they talk about it in the hallways.  Classroom content and learning still occur, its just wrapped in a different blanket.  One that kids love and have a great time in class.  Especially as the weather gets nicer and summer vacation is knocking on the door.
 
 

In our previous post we talked about general tips for Working with Middle School Classes. In this post we are going to dig deeper into the concept of Bell Ringers.

Anticipatory Set, Bell Ringer, Warm up, there’s many different names but the concept is the same.  Get the kids working as soon as they walk into class.  The sooner you classes are engaged, they less behavioral problems you’ll face.  In addition you communicate to kids that you have work for them to do.  Establishing this routine early in the year or at the beginning of a new class paves the way to an effective learning environment. 

Class transition time:
Be sure to greet students as they come into class by name.  Especially those students who you know could be a problem.  It’s important to establish positive communication.  I generally will greet them and let them know what they will need (notebook, computer, book etc.).  Additionally, this is a good time to ask about last nights band concert or todays Volleyball match.  These few minutes are vitally important to establishing a positive climate.  During this time, your bell ringer activity should be posted, either on the board, on paper or projector.  A portion of the class will begin to read and think about the question or activity right away.  This is an important point, if half the class is reading your bell ringer, that means there are less kids to redirect at the start of class time.

Bell Ringer Types
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Content Review Questions:  These are simply lesson objective questions from the previous day.  Generally low order questions (we want a quick start with lots of success).   The goal here is to engage lots of kids in yesterday’s work.  For example, reviewing parts of Photosynthesis in a science lesson.    I created an Ecology Bell Ringer Pack for this purpose. 

Content Preview Questions:  Sometimes we’re looking to see where a class is at.  For example, does a class understand absolute value, providing a few sample problems. 

News Events:  I like these because they instantly engage student.  For example, The Chinese Space Station Crash.  Kids hear about these items and want to share and talk.  I like to tie these into content areas to make class more meaningful.
Physical Challenge:  Sometimes its fun to have kids just build something simple.  I have some classes with very active students, so I use physical challenges that get them thinking hands on.  Draw a box, build a cube, make a quick tower.  I created a Science Stacker Series for this purpose.

Grading:  I like to have students keep a section of notes dedicated to bell ringers that I can check at the end of a section or quarter.  Additionally, if they are doing something that you want to engage them a little more, use a stamp to grade their work.  This allows you to circulate the room, spot checking work with a stamp letting everyone know they completed the work. 

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The key to bell ringers is using them.  Be sure to have something up everyday.  The more teachers in your school that follow this procedure, the more productive your classes can become and the less behavioral headaches you’ll have to deal with. 
 

A colleague of mine introduced me to the wonderful world of Arduino.  These simple microcontrollers allow you to program, build and create simple inventions using inexpensive microcontrollers.  There is a vast online community that offers sample code and ideas.  From this humble introduction we currently have middle school students. . ..

• Creating lighted curtains for the musical
• Building remote sensors to monitor the school garden
• Creating remote sensors to monitor our aquariums and hydroponics set ups.
• Planning a Light and Music night, using LED strips to light up sculptures. 
• Remote Controlled Moon Phase Models

So what exactly can you do with them in a middle school classroom, anything you want!
Arduino starter kits cost around $35.00 via Amazon.  You will need a computer to use Arduino IDE, the programming language.  There are online versions and ones you can download to the computer.  It seems that most of the online versions charge a small fee, while the downloadable versions ask for a donation (not required).  I used Donorschoose.org to fund my latest  project and it took about a week.  There are many companies and individuals looking to support STEM based teaching ideas. 
So instead of asking your students to make a model, or an imaginary invention.  Take the next step and ask them to create the real thing using Arduino controllers!  I will be writing more on the topic in upcoming articles.  If you do get started, I would suggest trying the Blink program.  It turns a light on and off on the control board and introduces you to the basics of coding.     

Day 100 has passed, we’re well into the second half of the school year.  We’re also getting to the point that difficult students are driving us crazy.  So, what can you do as a classroom teacher?  In this series of posts, I’m going to review a handful of tried and true strategies to get your classes back on track and maintain your sanity.  Hopefully along the way we can return valuable instructional time.
 
Starting class.
The most important daily routine for middle level students is getting started as quickly as possible.  The longer your students sit with nothing to do, the more likely there will be discipline issues.  I set a mental note to always be teaching when the bell rings or class starts.   This requires a few steps.

1.        Always have a bell ringer or warm up exercise posted.  Greet your students by name and direct them to this activity. 
2.       Start class with as positive attitude as possible, I’m not talking about playing unicorns and rainbows.  But the incidents from yesterday are far away in students mind.  This is a struggle for teachers because we don’t forget anything.  I try to give the kids the benefit of the doubt each day. 
3.       Clip art does wonders to PowerPoints.  It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, but kids will start talking if they see something that interests them.
4.       Understand that 75% of kids will be ready when class starts, work on the 25% who aren’t.
5.       Be ready to redirect off task requests.  There are always a handful of students that their first act of class is to ask you to do something.  Can I.. .
              Go to my locker
              Go to the bathroom
              Go call my parents
              Go to the library
You can respond to these request in two ways, “NO” or “We can talk after class gets started.”
I use both approaches, the ultimate goal is to get your students together and on track at the start of class.   Many kids use this as avoidance behavior, which leads you to interruptions 3 minutes later when they return.   Side note:  if a kid is turning green I will tell them to go to the nurse or restroom.  These are the rare exceptions where professional judgement tells you the kid is not feeling well.    
 6.       Seating charts are a must.  In classes that are difficult, we must provide structure.  Removing the daily questions of who will I sit by reduces drama.  Additionally, it’s one more variable you can manipulate to help improve students learning.  We’ll talk about this on in later posts.

If you are looking to refocus and improve the start of your classes, remember, it’s your classroom.  We have a lot more control of what happens in the room than we think.  Start with the little details and they rest will fall into place.
 
Here’s an example of an activity I created for a particularly difficult group of students, Science Stackers.  The goal was to get kids working on a hands on activity that engages lesson content.  

Best luck with your teaching!
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