This week in Grade 7 & 8!

Well, week one is in the books! If you have been following our teaching journey with K&C Love Grade 3, you know that I am now teaching grade 7/8 until December. {Post here}.

First here is a peak at my classroom.....

This prayer table cover was created by my dear friend Darlene! Thanks girl!
My classroom library labels were a joint effort--Thank you Catherine at The Brown Bag Teacher for helping create some new classroom labels geared to the books I had in my classroom library.
You rock! Thank you also to Darlene, who helped sort these books for me! Luv ya!

 Here is my guided area.

 The word wall.

Here is a closer look at the classroom library bin labels

Here is how I will be grading their assignments (what each level and pegmark means)



Side view of Math Focus Board and Go Board

 I had a lot of nerves leading up to day one. The fear of the unknown, really. When people asked me "what are you teaching this year?" and I said "grade 7/8," I received a lot of "Stink Eyes!" HA! A lot of peoples reactions were "ohhh... good luck with that!" Those poor 12 and 13 year olds sure have a bad rap. Haha. And that's exactly how I approached grade 7/8. On day one, I spoke to my class about eliminating the "teen" stigma. I told them that I knew they were more than "attitudes and rolling eyes." And we were off....

I realize that week one is sometimes filled with smoke and mirrors, but it was a great first week. I couldn't have asked for a better start. We did the 'get to know you' activities for the first part of the day and then dove in.

One of my favourite activities this week was the Spaghetti Challenge. I broke the class into groups and gave each group 20 pieces of raw spaghetti, 1m of masking tape, 1m of string and 4 marshmallows. The challenge was to see who could build the tallest freestanding structure. Only catch was that they could not tear apart the marshmallows--- they had to sit on the top of the structure.



One of the focuses for Literacy this month is Making Connections. It was a great chance to use the Go Board---- Shared reading with complete class participation.

We have been busy, busy, busy..... Full Gear. No time to mess around! Ha!
4.5 hours of marking today was a great intro to intermediate. How much DID I assign them in the last few days!? Sheeesh!

Just need to find my niche and ways to incorporate my way of teaching.
I mean, even 12 and 13 year olds need to have a little fun learning, right?

My primary journey has ended (for now)..... but I am truly going to embrace this new story.
 Everyday the plot thickens and keeps me in suspense! :)

~Kaitlin~







Comments

  1. Fantastic! You'll be great in 7/8. Those kids are lucky to have you! =)

    Cathi

    ReplyDelete

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