New Year, New Possibilities To Engage Students

2017 is here and the possibilities are endless.  I love beginning a new year because I feel the joy of starting things over.  Fresh new possibilities are on their way to all of us.  We never know what that may look like until it happens.

I returned to school after holiday break on Wednesday, and I had a room transformation waiting for my students!  Apparently, a blizzard hit our classroom and we had a LOT of challenging work to get accomplished upon our return.  Before break, we had completed a math and reading unit but didn't have time to get the unit tests completed.  So, I knew we would have to review and ensure that all students had good understandings of what was needed before we took the tests.  To do this, I incorporated the theme of the blizzard and took the most difficult work and made it fun with games and challenges.

I greeted the kids in a penguin costume!  It's funny, I guess my kids are used to me being a dork because I got the biggest reactions from students who aren't in my class!  Ha!

I created a ClassFlow lesson and Kahoot quiz to use with our iPad cart that I was able to check out for the whole day.  We used the lessons to review the concepts I felt they needed practice with and the concepts that were the most difficult.

 I used a download with a pretty snowy video and music as background for our blizzard work times.

It wasn't a very involved class transformation but it did the trick and made our review fun instead of boring and tedious.

New Year's Goals

I am thinking about how I can make 2016 the best year yet.  I have some personal and teaching goals I have been wondering about.  Although, the "more often" goal for personal, I should really have-exercise.  I just feel more attached to the one I wrote.  Just being honest.  :)

Below in my teaching goals I have talk less and listen more.  I teach first grade and you have to guide and model for them a lot.  BUT now that it is mid-year, they know the routines, they know my expectations, they know what to do and now it is time to leave the nest and fly!  I will be expecting the students to teach more.  Yay, here we go!

Want to make some goals for yourself?  I have the slides below that I used above.  Then link up with me so I may check out your goals.  Only a few days left of 2015.  Make them great!