Snapshots of School Life

It's been almost a month since my last blog post... what have I been doing?!  Take a look at these snapshots of life at BFA Middle School!

We welcomed 2 new members into the chapel band for the spring semester, so we now have a new vocalist and keyboardist.  Just for fun for the first chapel of the new semester, we had all 10 students participate in leading worship!!  (6 vocalists, 1 guitarist, 1 keyboardist, 1 Cajon drummer, 1 on drumset) We totally maxed out the sound system, but it was great to see them all working well together!  

For the second semester of the Classroom Economy program that I've been using in Advisory, I decided to have the students go through an application and interview process for their new jobs.  I recruited my roommate, Brittany, to help me interview the students.  The newest position for this semester is the Insurance Broker.  I am introducing the students to the way insurance works and will be simulating natural disasters and vandalism/theft.

Here's our class auction, which is the culminating experience of the Classroom Economy each month.  Instead of using the normal auction format that I used all fall, January's auction was a first-price sealed-bid auction.  Students wrote their bids for various items on slips of paper and placed each slip in the item's corresponding jar.  Then, I read each of the bids and announced the highest bidder.

The students created pipe cleaner "grammar glasses" for our nouns and pronouns unit.  Here we are modeling our glasses!

To practice what they learned about nouns and pronouns, the students completed a "grammar lab."  They read a children's book with a partner, then identified all of the pronouns in the story.  They also stated common, proper, and compound nouns in the story.

After learning about the three main learning styles, I gave the students an opportunity to study our week spelling list in the style of their choice.  The kinesthetic group did stretches while spelling the words and acted out their meanings, while the auditory group chanted after one caller.  Pictured below is the visual group working on posters of each word with a meaningful sentence.

I have also added another class to my schedule!  I now teach German to the sixth graders during third period.  This class alternates with P.E., so the boys and girls are in two separate classes of seven students each.  I have organized each class into three leveled groups based on their background with the German language (which ranges from very basic to fluent!!).  Sometimes the students do individual practice using Rosetta Stone (pictured below), other times I work with small groups on topical lessons, and occasionally we are all together for a special application activity.  I am excited for the opportunity to help the students grow this semester!  (And meanwhile, my German is improving, too!)