Would You Rather? Plus Free Cool-Teacher Points :)

I decided this year that my number one goal in my writing was to make my kids FALL IN LOVE with writing.

Is there anything more important? I want kids who LOVE words, who love to read, who love to write, students who beg for free writing time and love to share their stories with each other.

Is that too much to ask? Am I putting too much pressure on myself? Nah.

So, this is how I have structured my writing class this year. I chose 4 major types of writing that I want my students to have mastery of this year when they leave my classroom:

personal narrative

creative character

persuasive essay ( turned into a speech)

research paper

Each quarter will focus on one of these types of writing with some fun stuff thrown in to keep things exciting.

I started with personal narrative since this is often the most accessible for students and I want to start the year off with some confidence! The first weeks of school, however, I just spent time reviewing mechanics ( because we all DESPERATELY need that in this texting generation U NO?) and doing fun quick writes to get my kids used to putting that pen to paper.

If your kiddos are anything like mine they LOATHE quick writes. They want to do anything they can to avoid actually writing. So I’ve come up with a fun way to get my kids writing. Three words folks: WOULD YOU RATHER?

This is an investment you need to make. You don’t even need the full game just the little deck of cards (Just $10 here on Amazon!)

I keep the box on my podium so they are always ready if we have a couple extra minutes of class time. Each of the cards has several options on the back with different “Would you Rather?” Scenarios. (WARNING: Use discretion. I would not advise reading all of these out loud to a group of middle schoolers.. cough, mud wrestling nude, cough… )After I read the questions to my students I set a timer and they have a certain amount of time to write their response (which must include their reasoning). I then either offer a time to share their answers or we take a vote as a class.

I typically give 3-4 minutes to write- looking for about a paragraph here, nothing fancy, just fun!

I GUARANTEE this will get your kids writing! And giggling! And probably some cool teacher points too- and let’s be real, we could all use a few of those 😉

 

Probability: Part 1

Ok, I’ll admit it. I’m a math teacher who hates teaching probability.

Quite possibily because I’m terrible at it. The unit on probability is when I have to use 90% of my brainpower during the school year. And I know that’s accurate because I rock at percents.

So in order to make probability concrete for myself ( because I learn like a middle-schooler) we play lots of games while learnign probability. To be honest if we lived closer to Vegas I would probably just march them into a casino and let the poeple who work there teach about probabiliy.

But since I can’t do that I just bring Vegas to the classroom! KIDDING (well kind of… stay tuned for part 2)

One of my favorite tools to teach the difference between Theoretical and Experimental Probability is Twister.

Twister? You ask. Yes, Twister- duh. What else would teach probability and also make your students look absolutely ridiculous? ( If you know of anything else let me know- those are my two criteria for any activity in my classroom)

Using the Twister spinner and my Twister Lab ( see my TPT store!)  my kids and I analyzed the probability that the spinner would land on each color and body part. ( see above)  I explained to the students that this was the Theoretical Probability.

Brave Twister Volunteers

I then asked for volunteers to play the game. As you can see from the picture- this game gets, well, cozy. I would reccomend choosing same gender volunteers! As the volunteers played the game, I had one person spinning and the rest of the class recorded each call.

At the end of the game we compared our actual data to our Theoretical outcome. We then discussed Experimental Probablity. 

This was an exciting way for the kids to learn the difference- we did it on a Friday afternoon and they were still able to define both terms on Monday morning. Which any teacher can tell you means… Sucess!!