Mrs. Evans Blog

Today I'm frustrated by how the system that we have in place doesn't always help students. In fact, right now I feel like because of some restrictions we have in place, I have students that aren't getting the same help and support that other students are receiving when they would benefit from some of those resources as much or more than some of the students currently receiving help. I have a girl who was in math lab last year. That meant she had math 2 periods a day. They focused on preteaching what the students would see in their math class as well as ITED prep during that 2nd math class. This student passed her math classes last year. She was proficient on her Iowa Assessments. (Although, had she scored one point lower she would not have been, and would have been automatically eligible for lab this year.) Since she was proficient by one point, the only way she would be put in lab this year was if her interim test scores last year were below an average of 50%. She was ju...

On Monday night, I sponsored a team of 12 students for "Under the Lights." More than 900 kids took part in the homecoming fun! It was basically grown up field day. So much fun!! It was a great way to bond with the kids and get the whole school involved!!

Today we created a 3-d grid in our classroom with toilet paper and a plastic rod from the blinds! My students had been having a particularly hard time visualizing the 3-d grid on 2-d paper. This seemed to help a lot, and it was fun! You can't see it in the photo, but a student is holding an "X" sign for the x-axis and another student is holding the "Y" sign for the y-axis. I even had the kids tell me the coordinates of the clock based on our 3-d grid. Graphing on 2-d paper was a lot more successful after doing this activity.

1. Another teacher had the idea to put all the notes for an entire unit in one power point. I think this one little thing makes it easier to find things both this year and next year when we're trying to remember what we did instead of having a different power point for each individual lesson. 2. Collaboration makes us better teachers. I want to repeat this 10 times because I believe it's so important. I met with another teacher today after school to talk about the rest of the week. I believe my kids will benefit so much from the ideas she was able to share with me. 3. Today I spent about 3-5 of the 46 minutes sharing sort of silly stories that were oddly related to what we were talking about. (Meaning they had to do with what we were talking about, but really weren't necessary.) I'm curious if the kids appreciate a small break to just hear a story and then get back to it, or if they wish I would stay strictly to the point the whole time. I suspect the kids would be ...