Lively Language Arts

Last summer, I had a baby. So, my summer consisted of hanging out with my little love and coming to terms with leaving him to go back to work in November. Very little was accomplished school-wise other than trying to figure out this new juggling act. THIS summer, though, my kiddo has been in daycare part time (in order to hold our spot/ moving classrooms/ transitions/ he loves his daycare!), so I have had some time to do some things that will allow me *more* time with him once the school year starts, so yay for that! I jumped into some books, read some new things, read some old things , did everything I possibly could with my Erin Condren teacher planner before school, and here I am, two weeks to go before inservice week. What have I been reading? I know you're dying to know...   The First Days of School by Harry K. Wong and Rosemary T. Wong I have already sung the praises of their classroom management book (the pictures! so many pictures!), so I decided to h...

I give many, many kinds of assessments. But there is one assessment I give throughout the year that makes me want to pull all of my beautiful curls out of my head, and that, my dear friends, is the REVIEW UNITS FOR VOCABULARY WORKSHOP. I will promote Vocabulary Workshop until the cows come home (affordable, SAT prep, CC aligned, online resources, etc., etc.), but the review tests (five in total throughout the year, in all three of my LA classes) are 50-100 questions, primarily multiple choice, and by the time I have graded close to 90 of them, my eyes are crossed and I swear I need new glasses. Enter ZIP GRADE. I remembered hearing about some program years ago that would scan a bubble sheet and give you the answers. Zip Grade goes a step further. Create your class list, and each student gets a code (I created easy-to-remember ones based on their graduation year). Tell the students their code before the test, and you're off to the races, as my momma would say. When the lovely...