This, That, and the Other {a snapshot in time}

I teach a creative writing class and we're between projects right now. Translation: 2 minutes to think of something fantastic for the kids to WRITE about because in all the hustle and bustle of last week, I forgot to plan the inbetween 'thing'! I got this wild hair and decided to have another teacher come in to my room and commit a crime. He wandered in....targeted a few items....pocketed a few things....harassed a few kids and left. If you walked into my classroom and saw this, you might not have a clue what it meant: But just ask my 8th period creative writing class. They wrote some pretty darn descriptive police reports.

And if you glanced at my chalkboard at this present time, you might think it was a litter box of sticky notes! But just ask any kid in my math class; they know better. This thingy's a stem and leaf plot:

And a line plot:

Go ahead. Ask any kid to find the mean, median, mode, and range of this data. I dare ya cause THAT'S how much we've been working on it.


My friend, Maegan, gave me this great partnering idea and so far, it's worked like a charm. There are four simple words on my chalkboard with a sticky note next to one. Each kid has a red, white, blue, and green partner. When the kids come in, the first thing they look at is this spot on the chalkboard:

And then they know to sit next to that particular partner. It's been so fun to watch how 'into' this pairing up idea the kids are. They had choice in their partner and are excited for a change of sorts. But believe you me, they let me know if they've spent too much time with one partner!

Just a lil snapshot of our word list this week. Guess what we're studying in science? One of my personal favorites :)

And this lil gem on my desktop has made me smile since Christmas. My secret Santa gave it to me and it smells like yummy cinnamon. Everyone who comes into the classroom comments on how sweet it smells- which sure beats the adolescent alternative :)