New Year’s Activities in the Classroom

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Ahh, January First.  The day when Optimism spits in the face of Reality.  We all wake up the day after the ball drops with a cheery, almost annoying sense of hope.  Filled with promise and an itching desire for self-betterment, we burn through notebook pages with our pen or laptop, the tools primed and ready, set afire by good intentions.

Many of you are not going to listen to our [excellent] advice about less being more, so we decided to include a post for the overachievers, you tireless do-gooders.

Maybe you…
-are trying to lighten up the chug drug and cut back to only one cup a day.
-overindulged [just a bit] on the heavy hors d’oeuvres/fermented liquid fruit diet.
-want to drop double digits from your figure.
-wish to be set free from that tanning bed addiction.
-strive to be the best pretzel you can be and practice yoga three times a week.

Whether you are cutting back or pushing forward to great new heights, why not incorporate some of those resolutions into your classroom?  Studies** show that having an accountability partner is motivating and provides results.  You have 20+ accountability partners sitting in front of you every day.  Try some of these resolutions on for size.  They might just fit the bill.  [And hey, judging by what we ingested this holiday season, they’ll probably fit better than your long-lost pair of skinny jeans!]

**We do not know which studies, but we assume the studies exist.  Can that count as factual?

1. New Year’s Resolution Word Clouds

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Have students write down a list of New Year’s Resolutions.  Incorporate all of the resolutions into a word cloud using a FREE service called Wordle.  The results will be a pretty pile-up that summarize your highest New Year’s hopes.

2. Step it Up

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Buy a cheap set of pedometers at the dollar store and arrange your students into teams.  Have one pedometer “wearer” from each team record their steps at the end of each day.  This data can then be graphed and analysed to find the mean, median, mode, and range.  The team who wins at the end of the month or quarter gets a reward (give ’em extra recess, just to trick them into exercising even more).

3. Grade Level Showdown

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Ask grade level teachers if they would like to participate in a walking contest measured by pedometers.  Teachers  will record their steps each day and report weekly to your students.  At the end of each week, your students calculate the grade level teacher’s averages.  Host a salad lunch for the grade level that wins.  This contest offers opportunities to integrate math, nutrition, and a little friendly competition.

4. Caution: Only for the Exceedingly Brave and Possibly Stupid

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This suggestion may sound a little bit like tying yourself to the railroad tracks at the sight of an oncoming train.  As the subtitle suggests, it is only for those who are beyond courageous.

Try sharing your food and weight-loss diary with your students.

If you are trying to lose weight, there is nothing quite as powerful as the vulnerability of being held accountable.  Weigh yourself in front of your class.  Calculate your BMI.  Set weight-loss goals.  Keep a food journal on the side of your white board or on a bulletin board in your classroom.  Weigh yourself on the same day each week.  Graph your results [hopefully progress].  This will be hard, but it will GUARANTEE results.

We’d love to hear about your attempts at any of the above, especially Number 4.  Let us know via comments!

New Year’s Resolutions in the Classroom: Less is More

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A lot of teachers are too hard on themselves.  While it’s all well and good to be reflective about your practice, there is such a thing as too much self-critique.  With those New Year’s Resolutions plauging our consciences, and the little reminders of our inadequacies popping out at us from every magazine cover and every online ad, we could use a break from all of the guilt.

Instead of putting on the pressure to do more this year, why not resolve to do less?

Passing the Torch

There must be something in the egg nog, some growth potion in the break-and-bake Christmas cookies that makes them sprout up magically over break.  On the first day back of the new year, they seem to walk in the door seven-inches taller, ready and rarin’ to go.  This is your chance for a fresh start; in fact, we really only get two chances to start things anew (in August and in January).  Many students are ready to resume their routine while taking on new responsibilities at the same time.

Resolution #1: Do less cleanup.

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Invest in a broom and a Swiffer and assign sweeping as a daily job.  Many kids have a surprising affinity for sweeping, and you will become the janitor’s sweetheart (which has big pay-offs come the end-of-year cleanup).  You’ll find that a neat and tidy floor makes a big impact on the overall feeling of cleanliness in your room after school.

Resolution #2: Enlist a homework helper.

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Your students aren’t the only ones who dread that homework.  Assign a homework helper who checks planners during morning work time or before dismissal.  Slide a class list into a plastic protector and give them an overhead marker to keep track of which students have their homework and which do not.

Also, try pairing students as homework buddies.  The partners can exchange phone numbers so that they can consult each other when problems get tough.  Hold a quarterly contest that rewards the pair that turns in their homework each week (give out a homework pass, lunch with a former favorite teacher, or allow them to help the janitor make his/her rounds, etc.)

Resolution #3: Cut down on busy-work.

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For every sheet of paper you send through the copy machine, consider the impact it will have on learning.  Are you just filling morning work time with busy work?  Here are a few alternatives to daily morning worksheets.

Have a weekly songwriting challenge:  Check out this YouTube tutorial hosted by a highly-dedicated guy, Jonathan Mann, who writes a song a day.

Summarize and report current events:  The morning news is a mainstay in an educated adult’s literacy life.  Model this good habit by printing out or projecting current events from this kid-friendly site, Dogo News.

To see the two ideas above combined into another possible project, check out Flocabulary’s “Week in Rap“, which summarizes the weekly current events in a rap song.

Would you like some cheese with that “whine”?  Have students keep a kvetching journal.  This journal is strictly for complaints.  Assemble the funniest ones to publish in your classroom newsletter.  Many newspaper columns are set up for this exact purpose… why not challenge your grouchier students to transform those complaints into something hilarious?

If you have computer access for your students, set up a classroom social network on Edmodo.com for FREE!  Have a daily discussion board about today’s or yesterday’s learning topics, propose opinion polls, and post interesting links for them to read, just like you would with friends on other social networking sites.  They’ll love to check their updates each morning.

Set up a “Twitter” bulletin board in your classroom.  Your students can create user names and develop their own personalized tweeting style.  Maybe they’ll tweet about their weekends, personal interests, hobbies, friend-to-friend advice, or memory tricks and tips to help their peers with certain lessons.  Or write a daily prompt/topic on the board and post the winning Tweet on a real Twitter account that you keep for your classroom.  Parents can subscribe and check out the daily scoop.  (Keep the parameters of a 140-character limit and teach the valuable writing lesson that sometimes less is more.)

Engage your students.  Kill fewer trees.  Have smaller stacks of papers to grade.  Win-win-win.

Resolution #4: Save yourself  time and energy by preaching positivity.

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Self-fulfilling prophecies really do come true.  The more you tell your students they are capable, hard-working, and intelligent, the more you will see those qualities come shining through.

Resolution #5: Go on a date with yourself once a week.

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Too much time in the classroom can be a bad thing.  Once a week, make a date with yourself to do something other than be a teacher.  You are, in your own way, an artist.  Teaching is your art.  Follow Julia Cameron’s advice that she gives in The Artist’s Way, and “woo” yourself with weekly time spent alone, investing in yourself.  The payoffs you’ll see later in the classroom will be much greater than any time you would spend piddling around your room.

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You are doing a great job, and even though you feel energetic and rested from your break [hopefully], make sure that you don’t pile on the resolutions too thick.  Resolve to do less.  Less is more.