Keeping my room organized

What are some of your organizational strategies? I get papers handed in each day and my desk is a loose paper nightmare. I need some tips on staying organized.

Reading Comprehension sucks!

What are some ideas for teaching reading comprehension? This is my weakest area in the 6th grade curriculum.

Liar Liar

I have a student who is a compulsive liar, and it seems to run in the family. She is a trouble maker-so when she gets in trouble, I hear from the parents. Today I was blamed for causing permanent emotional damage to this student by her gma. Yet her mom is a drug addict and her dad is in and out of jail. I am worried because of the things she tells her gma at home. What do I do in this sort of a situation?

You fail to prepare, then prepare to fail

As educators, most of the time we are prepared for the day with an arsenal of fabulous interactive, highly-motivating lessons. But some days, mostly after a long weekend, we tend to rely on our "wing-it" skills. Well, if you are like me and most people who don't fall into the category of genius know-it-all with an incredible ability for public speaking, those lessons suffer from what I like to call "reality check, you suck at winging-it". So we prepare our lessons before hand and man, what a difference in student motivation and the student involvement. So let's give our students the education they deserve. Let's be that teacher that the students remember as the one with the awesome social studies activities and the cool science experiments, the motivating math talks and the wacky writing assignments. By planning lessons with a high level of student interaction, our students will be better prepared as they plan their lives and life goals.

Fun idea for Ancient Egypt lesson

For some reason, Ancient Egypt is one of my students favorite topics, even before we even start talking about it. We have a lot of fun during this unit. One of the highlights of the unit is when we make the pharaoh masks.

These take a little preparation (i.e. parent help, gathering supplies, and ample time) First, plan on enlisting the help of 5-8 parents. The more the better. You will need to go to your local medical supply store and purchase 10-15 rolls of casting material and 6 tubes of Vaseline. You will also need to collect 30 flat pieces of cardboard (2'x2', 1 per student). The last thing you will need are 5-8 cans of golden spray paint and some black permanent markers.

On the day of the project, assign a couple of parents to cut the casting material into 6 inch strips. Assign a couple to the job of applying Vaseline to the face of the students. Assign the remaining parents to the application of the material to the face.

To apply the material, soak it in warm water and apply it to the Vaseline layered face. Cover the face from top of forehead to just under the chin and from ear to ear. Cover the eyes and mouth, leave only the nostrils open. If you don't put the Vaseline everywhere, it will pull hair and skin. Leave the mask on for 10 minutes or until it is hard enough to pull off. Detach by pulling from chin area.

While allowing the mask to completely harden, make the pharaohs headdress with the cardboard. Cut out a whole for the mask and attach the mask to the cardboard using the casting material. Apply the material on the front and back of the mask making sure the mask is secured to the cardboard. Spray paint gold and do the final details with the black marker.

Have fun!

Calming the 6th grade beast

Since the first day of school the behavior of one particular student has been atrocious. I had to give this student a school citation the very first day of school, before I had even talked to my students about the classroom expectations! I had never seen anything like this before. This persons behavior was an obvious cry for ATTENTION! He/She was fidgety, roamed the classroom, talked out at any time of the day, and drove other students crazy with constant babel and noise making, and this was the first day of school! I called mom and got the response I was least expecting. Her child says it is other kids with the issues and that whatever her child tells her, she is going to believe. So we were off to a "lovely" relationship. NOT! Since that day, I have tried everything I could think off, my principal could think of, and the school councilor could think of. Let me just tell you what we have tried. Simply following the natural course of the classroom consequences. We tried tally marks every fifteen minutes. We tried to create a contract with mom, but you can imagine where that went. I have tried putting his/her desk right next to mine-all that did was give him/her full access to me. Huge mistake. We have done think time, we have done detention during recess, I have classroom parties with the invitation being "no bad behavior"-nope. And just today, I had to go through the entire spectrum of consequences. I have gotten no where. Help!!