A Look into my Classroom

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Our typical class routine includes a warm up, a short class discussion of the warm up, lecture and note taking, and some kins of class activity. Here I am beginning a lecture. On this day we covered the Protestant reformation. I wear a microphone to help a student with a hearing impairment, but I find it helps all of the students to stay focused.

History is FUN!

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On Friday we celebrated a job well done on the religion unit test and homecoming with a fun history lesson outside the book. We discussed the importance of different inventions throughout history such as the telephone, automobile, and light bulb.

Then, the students themselves became the inventors! They had to create contraptions to keep an egg safe from a fall. The only materials available to each group were 10 plastic straws, 10 rubber bands, and a small amount of tape.

The picture shows one of the surviving eggs (named Roger) and an invention that managed to keep another egg from breaking.

I think our world history students in the morning really enjoyed the activity. The afternoon classes had fun too – they attended the homecoming pep assembly!

This Week: The Byzantine Empire and Russia

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This is our plan for the week. Remember to study for the quiz on Friday!

Last week we finished up the religion unit when we had the unit test on Thursday. The picture below shows the scores for each hour. The highest score possible was 105, due to some tricky extra credit questions. Great job to the 3rd hour student who earned all of the points! Overall, the scores were good with most in the 80s and 90s.

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Homecoming: Day 4

The overall theme for homecoming is “A Hero’s Homecoming” in which hometown heroes will be recognized. But we are also celebrating superheroes! So today everyone dressed as their favorite super hero or villain. I went as Super Girl! What a fun day, I might wear a cape more often!

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On another note, two of my students told me today that when I become a real teacher I should come back to teach at Millington! Things like that just make my day 🙂

Homecoming: Day 3

Today’s theme was “Millbilly Day.” I guess neighboring towns call Millington residents Millbillies sometimes and this is their way of embracing it. Students were dressed in fishing waders, hunting gear, cowboy boots, and even corn stalks!

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Homecoming Week: Day 2

Today is around the world day! I’ve seen many countries represented including China, Japan, Poland, Australia, Mexico, and France. I planned to wear my kimono today but unfortunately it was nowhere to be found. Here are some creative students from my 3rd hour class. We have karate from China, anime from Japan, and Paco the Walking Taco from Mexico. Awesome!

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Homecoming Week!

Today kicked off Spirit Week for Millington’s Homecoming. We celebrated today with “Old Timers Day” where everyone dressed like a senior citizen. We had some really creative students! They brought canes and walkers, drew on wrinkles, sprayed their hair gray, and wore all sorts of crazy outfits. So much fun! I can’t wait to see what everyone wears for “Around the World Day” tomorrow!

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The Schools of Thought in China

As we continue our religion unit in World History our most recent topic was the history of religion/thought in China. We discussed Confucianism, Legalism, Buddhism, and Daoism. The students thought they were pretty interesting ideas, and all so different. Daoism was of particular interest because the daoists belief in magic and ghosts led to the invention of fireworks! As an assignment students created advertisements to entice vacationers to visit an area based on the principles of a certain school of thought. Here are some great examples:

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Their advertisements were so fun to read! This week we will learn about Islam and the Protestant Reformation. At the end of the week I will introduce the religion unit project.

There’s a lot of work in teaching besides the actual teaching!

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I’ve been working to tackle this mountain of ungraded papers. This is a lot of work! I always knew being a teacher would include many hours of grading and prepping at home, but I wasn’t expecting this much. I’m sure I’ll get into a more effective routine after a couple of weeks. Then I will hopefully be able to get a decent amount of sleep! 🙂

A Brief History of Ancient Religions

Last Monday we learned about the ancient religions of people in Egypt, Sumer, and Persia. The assignment was to write about or draw the tomb they would be buried in if they were an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. Here are the results of the tombs they drew, we have some great artists in class!

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This week we are continuing to learn about the history of world religions. Topics will include the development of Christianity and Islam.